


The In-between

by obsessivewriter



Series: Qohor [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: After the battle, Aftermath, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Intimacy, Longing, Missing Scene, Mutual Pining, Secret Relationship, how they got rid of the body of the ice dragon, how they handled the dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22286656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivewriter/pseuds/obsessivewriter
Summary: Whatever happened between the moment the Night King fell and the infamous feast? Three weeks went by while Winterfell was being rebuilt and the dead were dealt with. This four-part fic covers each one of those weeks, and explore how Arya and Gendry's relationship grew.___"I'm sorry I lost the weapon you made me," she finally said.Gendry's eyebrows knitted, and he seemed confused by her statement."I don't care," he replied, smiling softly. "I don't care if you lost it. I only care that you survived.""It was a good weapon. Strong," Arya explained, feeling guilty at having doubted his skill before.He laughed."I'll make you a thousand swords and a thousand spears if you promise me you will not ever die."His words pleased her, and she would have put that into words if reality hadn't called them both.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Series: Qohor [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605601
Comments: 191
Kudos: 279





	1. Sennight 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic follows the canon from No time for slow, and can be read as a prequel to the following fics: Just enough, You'll be gone in the morning and All roads lead to Qohor.
> 
> It will not work with the canon of The King and the Master of War because I wrote that they had only been together before the Battle of Winterfell and not after. I did, however, use Gendry's narration of what happened after the dead fell (so I guess it counts as self-plagiarism, or writer's laziness) so, if you'd like to count it as a prequel for TKATMOW just squint a little and dismiss the bits that don't work.
> 
> If you are still with me after all that, thank you, you absolutely rock. 
> 
> Hope you like this one, I loved writing it.

[ ](https://imgur.com/1sf752I)

**Gendry I**

The dead had suddenly plummeted where they stood, and Gendry turned to see Tormund, with the same bewildered eyes as he was sure to have. A minute later, when the fog in his brain cleared, and he was convinced that the dead would rise no more, he jumped from the pile of bodies and ran, looking for Arya. 

When he finally came to the entrance of the Starks' sacred woods, he saw her limp in Jon's arms, while her younger brother stared in silence. Gendry's knees buckled, and though his voice faltered to yell her name, he heard it, shrill in the voice of her sister, as she ran past him towards her siblings. Bereft, and yet, an intruder without a right to mourn. 

With his knees on the cold ground, he cursed at himself for not having asked the same promise she demanded from him. 

_'Don't you dare die.'_

It had never occurred to him that she could fall.

Not Arya.

Lady Stark's scream made Jon turn around, and the once limp body in his arms moved, pushing gently, making her brother set her down on her feet. Only then he let his lungs fill with air again, and he silently thanked all the gods he had never believed in for sparing her. Before anyone else could fault him for intruding in the family reunion, he walked away.

Gendry ambled back until he reached the only place where he had ever belonged, but he simply stood at the archway into the smithy. He felt hollow, the remnants of dragonglass and scraps of steel stared at him, but his arms were heavy, and the song of the steel did not promise any relief. Instead, he went to where he last had been alive, and he plummeted on the sacks of grain that had held them both just hours before. Despite the trace of death, he could still smell her scent mingled with his, and with it invading his mind, he surrendered into a dreamless sleep that embraced him like the promise of death.

Hours later, he woke up sickened by the blood and guts still clinging to his skin and clothes. Gendry walked back to the forge and fetched the bucket of water that the smiths used to wash away the soot. He undressed until his torso was bare, and despite the coldness of the water, he wiped away the muck. When his chest and arms were clean, his hands splashed water on his face and his shorn black hair. He squinted to see Arya at the entrance, a halo of light surrounding her. Gendry had to rub his eyes to make sure she was really there, but the vision didn't disappear, and so, they stared at each other for a few moments that felt longer than the Long Night. 

When the spell broke, they ran to each other. Gendry's feet planted themselves firmly on the ground to catch her as she leaped and crashed against him. He held her up with a hand on her backside, and he buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling deeply, letting her consume him whole. Her legs and arms were tight around him, her fingers digging into his bare skin, surely leaving marks to rival those carved by the wights. He then set her back on the floor, but she stayed wrapped around him, and Gendry couldn't do anything but kiss the top of her head. When Arya looked up, he held her head and kissed her slowly, unable to stop, wondering if it was still allowed, now that the blurred limits between their worlds had been reestablished. At that moment, it really didn't matter to him, and as long as she kissed him back, he wouldn't stop. He would have kissed her the entire day and night if the voices outside calling for help hadn't distracted them. Outside, people were coming off their stupor, and they were finally taking stock of their losses. There had been just one second to look into each other's eyes, to acknowledge they were there and still alive before Gendry put on a clean tunic, and they parted to help drag dead bodies out.

Outside, a new type of battle was just starting, and someone had to take charge and plot a course of action. The Lady Stark had been swift, busing herself with the survivors. There was little time to mourn those lost when there were so many injured. And with the ease of her commanding voice, she instructed the maester to tend to the wounded. She then ordered the servants to set to rights whatever they could, so those lucky enough to make it through the battle would have a place to be sheltered from the cold, and something warm to fill their bellies. 

As Lady Stark dealt with the living, Jon handled the dead, giving priority to the disposal of the bodies of the fallen over those of the wights, giants, and dragon. The task of clearing the dead was overwhelming, but Jon saw it necessary that his people didn't have to keep staring at their dead loved ones, strewn on the ground. Only once all the thousands that had fallen were laid down outside, the pyres would be erected to burn them all. The threat of the dead rising again in the ranks of the undead was over, but no one wanted to chance it.

No one knew how they would deal with the massive body of the ice dragon, and Gendry feared the only solution he could fathom, but there were more pressing matters to worry about.

* * *

That first night after the battle, was the second time Gendry tried to go to sleep, but it was not like letting death swallow him slowly like it was at dawn because the moment his eyes closed, the nightmares began.

No, not images.

Sensations.

His arms were as heavy as lead, and he could not lift them.

The hammer slipped from his fist, and it fell loudly on the floor.

At the sound, hundreds of wights turned to see him, and his legs crumbled like straw.

He woke up in his narrow cot drenched in sweat, panting uncontrollably in the cold Northern air, his shallow breaths fogging in front of him. Gendry forced himself to sleep again, and then, he was back on the sacks of grain with Arya atop of him. He felt her rolling her hips over him, eyes closed, and cheeks flushed, making wild little sounds that made his chest puff up with manly pride.

But when her eyes opened, they glowed blue in the dark.

After his second nightmare, he knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep at all, and so, Gendry gave up on even trying. He donned every bit of clothing he owned and left his room to wander the keep without aim. He found his way to the battlements, and he sat down against the stonewall in silence until Arya found him.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, standing in front of him, the tip of her boots gracing his.

"Couldn't sleep," he explained as she sat down next to him. "You?"

Gendry opened his arms, letting her find her place against him, and once she did, he settled his hand on her shoulder, allowing his plain cloak to cover her as well.

"Couldn't either," she replied, and he felt her head leaning on his shoulder.

Gendry tilted his head and looked at her, his head felt heavy, and he let it settle against hers. As Arya surrendered to sleep, Gendry placed a quick kiss on her forehead before following her into oblivion.

**Arya I**

Arya thought she had died when the Night King shattered all around her, even if just for a moment. She wouldn't be able to say what it was or how long it had lasted, but the only thing she knew was that she had lost herself, and for an instant, she was no more. Arya had been surrounded by darkness and silence until Sansa's voice ripped through the night, and she wiggled in Jon's arms like a fish gasping out of the water, or mayhaps a newborn babe. Few things were making sense in her mind at the time beyond the word _'pack,'_ but she was almost sure, as her siblings embraced her, that she had seen the back of Gendry's head, leaving the godswood. Something inside her stilled, and gave her certainty, that if he had succumbed in battle, a hollowness would burn in the middle of her chest

There was a blur of movement as she let her sister guide her through the remains of the castle, towards a shaken Maester Wolkan, who saw to her injuries despite Arya's protests that others should be treated instead. Once patched up, Sansa led her to her chambers, and called for someone to draw her a bath of healing herbs to erase every reminder of the battle. Arya found it ludicrous that despite all the ruin and death, she was now there, taking a bath like the lord's daughter she had been so many namedays before. It seemed that being the hero of Winterfell afforded her plenty of luxuries, and it bothered her to no end that some serving girl had to tire herself hauling boiling water to fill her tub while still in shock from the godsawful night they had all survived. 

How long ago since Arya was the girl hauling the water and presenting a gilded cup of Dornish red to some undeserving noble?

If her lord father had never heeded the summons from the King, would she had ever wondered about the hardships of those drawing her baths?

She'd like to think she would, no matter what, for all her life, she had been embarrassed by the privilege of her social standing. Fate had forced Arya to grow far away from the lavish life of her birth, and she now shared more in common with those who blistered their hands for the comforts of others. 

Right then, though, she was confident that everyone else would be cleaning blood and guts from their skin with cold water, while she was submerged in the steaming copper tub. There would be time to have it all bother her more, but the only thing she could do then was lather herself, shedding the filth of death from her body. 

It occurred to her that along with the remnants of the battle, she was washing away Gendry's dried seed from her thighs as well. Her body ached from fighting the wights, and she suspected it would be days before she'd be able to swallow without pain because of the Night King's hand. Still, she gave herself a moment to acknowledge the other soreness: the ache of thoroughly using muscles she hadn't known she had. Arya didn't care about her lost maidenhead beyond the satisfaction of knowing it wouldn't be a playing piece in the game of thrones. She would have to accept, though, at least to herself in that tub, that her exertion before the battle had been a lot more than making sure she wasn't a marrying maiden, or figuring out what it felt like before dying. 

Cleaning the thatch of hair between her legs, she thought of him under her as she rode him, and then later when he had fucked her against the wall before the horns were blown. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, allowing herself the luxury of reminiscing with her fingers the bit of pleasure she allowed herself before death, and she tried to elicit the same sensations he sowed in her flesh.

* * *

When they woke together at dawn, stiff from falling asleep while sitting on the hard floor of the battlements, the bustling of the castle let them know they'd soon be needed elsewhere in their own separate worlds. They took a moment to look at each other, and Gendry braved the cold to take off one of his gloves and brush loose hairs behind her ear. Arya parted her lips and swallowed before speaking, but her moment's hesitation seemed to make him fear he had acted out of place.

"I'm sorry I lost the weapon you made me," she finally said.

Gendry's eyebrows knitted, and he seemed confused by her statement.

"I don't care," he replied, smiling softly. "I don't care if you lost it. I only care that you survived."

"It was a good weapon. Strong," Arya explained, feeling guilty at having doubted his skill before.

He laughed.

"I'll make you a thousand swords and a thousand spears if you promise me you will not ever die."

His words pleased her, and she would have put that into words if reality hadn't called them both.

* * *

Arya went to help her sister with the injured and the hungry. Sansa stared at hands that had never been good with needle and thread, sewing wounds shut deftly. There was no time to remark on it, and if she had not questioned her sister beyond what Arya had disclosed regarding her skill for spilling blood, why would she raise her eyebrows at her talent for treating wounds? Mainly when one maester was insufficient for the needs of many. 

Besides the help with the wounded, she had helped in the kitchens as well: Arya had always been good with her sums, that much Sansa remembered, though she couldn't know that life out in the King's road had taught her to be creative with little to cook.

While Arya helped in the keep, she'd find herself being reminded of Gendry, both as the sullen boy he was on the road, young in a body that made him look like the man he wasn't yet, and the grown man he had become, and she had bedded when she had thought it was time for her to pay her debt to the god of death.

Being a Stark and having killed the Night King had earned her a place at the strategy table, though, it didn't warrant her opinion being sought for the battles to come. She bid her time and observed as the Targaryen queen mourned her dragon child and her Mormont advisor. She had seen her in the courtyard saying a final goodbye to the dragon she had lost once before. The queen stayed with it for hours and once her goodbyes were said, she left, and never turned to look back again.

Arya could see that her sister remained wary of the queen, and how both women's inability to see eye to eye caused a rift between her siblings.

**Gendry II**

Three days after the battle, he let himself think of their night together. 

The memory was never far from his mind, but he hadn't let himself fully relieve it until right then, lying in his cot. Winterfell seemed even colder, but his memory of her set him on fire. Gendry closed his eyes and let his hand slide under the threadbare blanket. 

Something else he let himself think in full words was his desire to love her again. He wanted to feel her against him bare once more, let himself be buried in her flesh without time constraints, without thinking that his last breath was near. As he stroked his cock, he thought of going to her chamber, taking her into his arms once she opened the door and slamming it shut. He would carry her to her own bed and strip her naked, and this time he would keep all the candles on to take his time exploring her body. He would caress and lick every inch of her, and he wouldn't even take his own breeches off until he had made her peak, panting his name at least once. Then, and only then, he would take his own clothes off and make love to her on her soft featherbed. 

In his fantasy, he had more aplomb that he knew he'd ever show with her. In his feverish dream, there were no social differences to make him feel insecure. In his mind, there was no one else in the keep but the two of them.

Once he was spent in his fist, he chastised himself for such wanton thoughts and cursed his bastard blood or the blood of the lecherous King who sired him. He knew that at the end of the day it didn't matter if he was a bastard or not, the furious blood in his veins was greedy and lustful, and there was nothing more lustful than wanting her, yes, moaning and writhing under him, but the lewdest thoughts and wants in his mind and flesh were not just for her body, but wanting her holding his hand out in the open, having her meals sitting with him, and imagining them both sleeping side by side on the same bed when they were old and gray.

* * *

Gendry tried to avoid looking at the faces of the dead. Most of them had open eyes, and their grimaces told their stories of horror. He had met a good number of the dead that he carried out the tall walls of Winterfell.

Some more than others. 

Death was not new to Gendry, plenty of people died in Flea Bottom, both in his first and second time living there. And then, there was plenty of death on his way to the Night's Watch with Yoren, and even more in Harrenhal. Many of the dead had worked with him, forging the dragonglass weapons, and others he had never spoken to. Still, he remembered their faces from seeing them out and about, in the mad dash to get ready for battle, queuing to get a bowl of soup from Davos or from his walk, when they blew the horns, to his place at the front of the lines. 

After a whole day of carrying dead bodies, he stopped noticing them, until he ran into the body with the cloth covering one of its eyes.

Beric.

He just stood there, staring, until a voice brought him out of the trance.

"You must be happy the fucker is dead," The Hound grunted. "He and Thoros sold you, that's what you whinged about up north, ain't it?"

"It was a shit thing that they did, selling me for a few coins. Didn't mean I wanted Beric dead," Gendry said without turning to face him.

"She did, though."

Those words did yank his eyes to look at The Hound for answers.

"Every fucking night she repeated that list of hers, kept me awake, the little wolf cunt. _Thoros of Myr. Beric Dondarrion._ Why do you think she had them there, along with the red bitch?"

Gendry winced at the way he referred to Arya, but the realization of the names that were added to her list after they parted made him dizzy.

"I'm sure she had her reasons," he finally spoke.

"Yeah, and all her reasons had something to do with your fucking arse."

"Whatever the case, he fought with us. Can't fault him for that."

"He died to save her, Arya," the Hound announced. "One of those dead fuckers had her pinned on the ground."

Gendry's heart faltered.

"He held them back so we could run. I'm sure he'd say that he was doing his flaming god's bidding, and some horseshit like that, but if you ask me, he died to pay her the debt he owed her."

Gendry turned back to look at the corpse of the man who had sold him as a sacrificial lamb, he squatted next to it and lowered the lid of the only eye he had left. 

"He owed me nothing then."

* * *

Eating was hard after dealing with corpses day in and out, but Gendry had starved enough in his life to know that if food was set in front of him, it had to be consumed, despite how put off he was, when only the gods knew if there would be any more in his future. The day after moving Beric's body he found himself with his stomach in knots, sitting at the long table, empty-handed, trying to will his legs to walk and get something to eat, but he just felt exhausted and instead, focused on the grain of the wood.

"Eat," Davos commanded, placing a bowl in front of him, and sitting next to Gendry.

"Thank you," he replied sincerely, but he only took the spoon next to it, and stirred the broth inside.

"It's just clear broth," Davos explained. "I find it easier to stomach after staring at blood and guts all day."

"Thank you," Gendry said once more, but this time he took a spoonful.

"Too many died, but I'm genuinely glad that you were not among them. I would have felt responsible if you hadn't made it."

"You saved my life once. I will never thank you enough for that."

Davos looked outside through the windows, to the faraway snow-covered horizon, barely visible over the tall walls of the keep. He then turned back to look at the broad-shouldered man next to him, who had finally started eating the broth. 

"She's dead, you know?"

"Who?" Gendry asked, setting the spoon down.

"The red woman."

Gendry stayed silent, looking down. 

"I thought you should know."

"I saw her when she arrived that night. And I saw what she did to light the arakhs and the trenches."

The tone in Gendry's voice told the older man of his conflicting emotions.

"Aye. She helped us. I've heard from Sandor of his part in assuring our victory. It doesn't make what she did right, though."

There was no need to put into words what Melisandre had done to Gendry. Shameful, as it was for him, Davos was privy to it all.

"It doesn't wash away all of her sins, and it doesn't bring back what we lost."

Gendry had heard of Shireen.

"Did she die by your hand?" He dared ask.

"She would have if that god of hers hadn't meddled and turned her to ash out there at dawn.

Gendry seemed to think for a long moment before he spoke again, "good."

"I'm sorry."

"Whatever for?"

"I brought you to this path, this fight that wasn't yours."

Gendry's eyes were not on Davos anymore; instead, they had set on Arya, who had just come into the hall with a large jug of water, and she went around refilling goblets.

"That's where you're wrong."

"What's that?" Davos asked surprised since he had assumed Gendry was no longer invested in their conversation.

"The fight," he replied as his eyes continued following Arya's path around the hall, and was not lost in Davos, "it was always mine."

Davos' eyes softened with realization and even a hint of a smile.

"I saw her in the battlements, you know?"

Gendry turned to stare at him, and though he opened his mouth, he was at a loss for words.

"Don't give me that look, lad. You very well know who I'm referring to."

"You saw her, then."

"Something else altogether. She was surrounded and took out dozens of wights single-handedly, and I've never seen anything like it."

Davos could see the apprehension despite the proof of her wellbeing being right there in front of them, breathing and walking.

"She took them all out with ease with that spear you made her."

Gendry's sigh of relief was audible, and it endeared Davos even more. 

"I'm glad."

**Arya II**

There was not much time for anything, even less than before the battle. Despite the cold, the stench of death was too much to allow to let fester. The well-deserved rest had to be forgone until the pyres were erected and all the bodies piled on them. The first sennight after the battle, she saw Gendry sporadically, as they went by in the keep, dragging bodies, sweeping the debris, and caring for the injured. There was only time for heated stares and passing touches. Barely a few seconds to let a thumb caress the back of a hand. 

After the night they spent together on the battlements, she wondered if he'd seek her out. If one of those times when they ran into each other, he'd take her hand and drag her to a dark corner of the keep. As her thighs rubbed together under the warm furs of her featherbed, she'd stare at her door, willing it to open and reveal him, coming to her in the dead of night. 

Before the battle, when he brought her the spear, her resolve had come to her quickly. She'd drowned all the self-doubt in bravado. She had kissed him without a preamble, so her own loud heartbeat in her ears was all she could hear. When Gendry said her name, almost too quietly to hear, Arya had feared rejection. 

She couldn't be the girl in the cave anymore, and so, instead of making promises, she joined her lips to his. 

In the end, it was easy. 

Arya was no stranger to mockery, Sansa and her friend had seen to that since she was little, but that was water under a bridge. Then on the road, in Harrenhal and then in Braavos, she had learned that if you cared too much about making mistakes, you would never learn anything new. 

It didn't matter that the Braavosi laughed at her for butchering their words. The language had come to her in the end.

Practice was all it took.

Syrio had taught her that lesson well.

That night before the battle, she had kept the nervousness trapped, fluttering in her stomach, and a stone mask on her face. And when she found herself climbing atop Gendry, she trusted that both their bodies would figure out what to do, and read each other like they used to when they were children. It had been awkward, but intimate, and instead of sating her, it had left her wanting more.

Their second time had been wild, and far more enjoyable, but much too brief. 

When the horns announced the impending battle, she barely had enough time to pull her clothes back on and extract a promise, kissing him soundly afterward. She ran to her place then, feeling his seed fresh, running down her thigh. 

After the third night of falling asleep alone, reliving their time together, and nothing more, she knew he wouldn't come. She had feared before that he didn't have as much need of her as she did of him, but she soon concluded than even if he did crave her, their social differences would surely temper his desires.

A sennight from the fall of death, she'd had enough, and she was eager to know what else could there be between them. The opportunity presented itself when she heard Jon asking a servant girl to fetch Gendry from the forge. 

The queen was eager to march south and claim her throne.

The wonder that two dragons flying above her head had evoked abated, and Arya felt uneasiness in her chest instead. She chose to let herself out the strategy session in the library, knowing the place where she'd wait furtively for him, as the wolf she was.


	2. Sennight 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya and Gendry spend a night in her chambers.  
> ____
> 
> "I want you."  
> "I'm yours."  
> "I know, stupid, but I want you right now."  
> "Your brother will geld me when he finds us."  
> "My brother would be an idiot if he even tried. I'm faster with a blade than he is. Come to my chambers tonight."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things heat up. I hope you enjoy this one ;)

[ ](https://imgur.com/ZcLbuXv)

**Gendry III**

When the girl came to the smithy looking for him, Gendry felt his heart skip for a moment. 

He and Jon had played up the fated friendship before, but there wasn't truly a strong bond between them. Gendry knew his motives for it, Jon's? He couldn't say for sure, but that was that. Their friendship had lasted the trip north of the wall and then their march to Winterfell. Gendry had no ill feelings towards Arya's favorite brother and had not expected anything more from their so-called friendship. After all, the shit that had come out of his mouth about their fathers' friendship had been just to let him pay a debt he had to his sister, who Gendry thought long dead.

This summons from Jon rattled him, and he feared he had learned what he'd done with his little sister before the battle.

Or worse, what he still wanted to do to her.

He had come to the library trying to make himself look the least guilty he could. Still, instead of Jon grilling him about his business with Arya, he asked him to gather all the weapons from the fallen, to make an inventory, and to plan how many could be mended and how many needed to be crafted for the next battle. Gendry had simply nodded and left the room after bowing to the queen. On his way out, as he was walking the halls of the Starks inner sanctum, he felt himself being yanked by the arm into a dark alcove. 

* * *

"I want you," Arya sighed in between kisses, always her, the bravest of them both. It was laughable because he wanted her as well, and he was sure she could tell, with how painfully hard he was, rubbing against her hip through both their leathers. 

"I'm yours," he replied, mayhaps too eager.

"I know, stupid," she said playfully, "but I want you _right now._ "

"Your brother will geld me when he finds us."

"My brother would be an idiot if he even tried. I'm faster with a blade than he is. Come to my chambers tonight."

Her words brought back the fantasy he had conjured in his head while taking himself in hand, and it made him lose all his bravado.

"I don't know where your chamber is," was all he figured out to say amid her kisses.

She pulled away slightly to chastise him for such a feeble excuse, "I had taken you for someone more resourceful than that."

His hesitancy gave way to frustration at her unkind words.

"Should I ask Jon for directions, then?" Gendry asked a bit more grumpily than he had intended. "Or better yet, your sister, the Lady Stark?"

Arya didn't miss a beat and countered, "you could ask my other brother, the Three-Eyed Raven. I bet Bran would be more forthcoming."

Gendry had not been introduced to Arya's younger brother, though he had been the object of his scrutiny. The younger Lord Stark had stared at him on several occasions, more often since after the battle. Gendry wondered if the young lord had him figured out, or mayhaps he wasn't seeing him at all, looking past him to another life years past or ahead.

"The Great Keep," Arya interrupted his thoughts," the family chambers are there, go to the Library Tower, and then take the bridge. There will be hallway to your left. The last door. Don't knock."

Arya had punctuated her words with another kiss, and Gendry sensed a slight restlessness in her, one that clashed with the mask she liked to wear.

"With my luck, I'll get it wrong and find myself in bed with Lord Snow," he grumbled. "I'll be sent to the Night's Watch for being a raper."

"There is no Night's Watch anymore stupid, and to be found a raper, I would have to be unwilling. And I am not at all unwilling."

She said it with a twinkle in her grey eyes.

"You'll be the death of me."

"Would you rather not have me again?" Arya asked, pulling him by the collar, until their lips were barely brushing, "on a proper bed this time?"

He growled against her lips.

"A just price then."

* * *

Gendry managed to run into walls and furniture at least three times, and it was only his fault for not taking a lantern with him, but he wouldn't risk running into Jon, or worse, Lady Stark, walking the hallways of the family wing in the Great Keep. He followed Arya's directions, making sure to take the connecting bridge between the buildings. He had never ventured there in his short time in Winterfell. He had been called to the library a few times already, to give reports to Jon on the dragonglass weapons production, but the Great Keep, with the family chambers and the lord's solar, was not for the likes of a bastard blacksmith. He was almost sure he had found the hallway that led to the Starks' chambers, but relying only on the low light from the outer torches, filtering through the windows made the task challenging. He walked until he reached the end and stood in front of the door to the chamber he prayed was hers.

He stopped himself from knocking when he remembered that she had asked him not to do so. Closing his eyes, he hoped that it was indeed her door, and he opened it as quietly as he possibly could.

The room was mostly dark, the only light coming from the dying embers in the hearth. His eyes scoured the room, looking for her, but he was unable to detect her form. At the very least, there were no other Starks present, and that was enough to embolden him enough to walk inside, closing the door behind him.

He traipsed towards the fireplace, but before he reached it, something tugged at his sleeve and made him turn around. As soon as he did, Arya was in his arms, lifting herself to reach his lips. He beamed in the dark against her mouth as he felt swept by a force of nature. The kiss eased, and he felt her lower herself back on her feet.

"For a moment, I thought you weren't coming," she chided him.

"Is that why you were waiting in the shadows ready to pounce at me?"

"I do not pounce," Arya warned him, in a voice that made him remember her back when her name was Arry.

"Can we feed the fire a bit?" Gendry requested, caressing her face and relishing in the softness of her skin.

"Getting cold?" She teased.

"No, not with you in my arms. I just want to see you properly this time."

Arya walked towards the fire and deposited new logs over the embers. After stoking the fire, the growing light eased Gendry's visibility, noticing, once Arya stood back up facing away from him, that she was wearing a gauzy shift that fell past her hips, until about mid-thigh. The orange glow of the fire was making the garment translucent, and he could see her silhouette as clearly as he had that night when Arya had bared herself for him before the battle. The sight was rapidly making him uncomfortable in his breeches, and when she turned on her heel to face him, Gendry noticed the hint of her nipples and the dark hair in between her legs. The luring vision urged him towards her, and he hauled her possessively into a heated kiss.

"Happy now?" She asked when they parted. She could feel his eagerness on her belly and his agitated breathing against her chest.

"A bit better, but we should light some candles if you have them."

"I'll do that while you take off your boots and your leathers," she said, pointing towards the bed.

Gendry sat down and was surprised by the softness of her featherbed. He shed his boots while he watched her lighting candles around the chamber. Every new flame, revealing more of her, and of the secret personal place, tangible proof of a long-gone life of privilege. As he took off his cloak and leather jerkin, he imagined a younger Arya, younger even than Arry, in that very chamber, rebelling against her upbringing, still ignorant of the heartache to come.

He had been lost in his thoughts when she startled him by climbing on his lap to kiss him passionately, making it challenging to keep up with curious and eager lips and hands.

"Arya," he called in between kisses, "Arya, stop for a second."

"You came all the way here to ask me to stop?" 

"I told you I want to see you properly," he replied, pushing her hair back, finally getting a clear view of her bruised face.

"There isn't much to see," she explained, turning away.

"You're wrong," he corrected her as he guided her back towards him, "I can see your beautiful face."

"You're mocking me."

"No. Never about this."

**Arya & Gendry I **

Arya looked into the blue of his eyes, and their stillness told her they held no mirth. They made something inside her softened, and it must have shown in her face for he pulled her towards him and took his time caressing her lips with his.

When she couldn't endure it anymore, she stood up and dragged him with her. Standing in the middle of her chamber, with the flickering light of the fire and a delicious warmth spreading inside, Arya ran her hands from his chest down to his hips and looked for the hem of his tunic to light it off his body. She took her time to explore his bare torso, and he let her hands map him carefully for the first time. 

Gendry reached down then for the hem of her shift, and he brushed her thighs as he hoisted it up. He kept going until the underside of her breasts was revealed, and Arya lifted her arms to aid him in shedding the only piece of clothing that covered her body. Gendry liked the way the dancing light from the flames played with her planes and curves, he let his eyes roam through it, then with enough calm to memorize her. The sight of her scars no longer shocked him like they did when he first saw them, though something roared in his chest, half in anger towards whoever had hurt her, and half in sorrow, for not being there. He tallied the other marks on her skin, ones that were not silvery, like veins made of steel, but new ones, painted in the dark red of drying blood or raised puffy and pink. There were bruises in an array of purples and greens, marks of her fight with death, that matched the ones that adorned him as well. He stopped for a second, when he noticed a dark purple bruise, just below her left nipple, marring the pale milkiness of her breast. It looked out of place among the scars of the battle, and it made him wonder how many of those marks were made by his own mouth and fingers.

Her little hands on the laces of his breeches, tugging impatiently, distracted him from his gazing. Once the ties were loose, her hands orbited around his belly button, and her thumbs took a moment to feel the ridges of the V that started just above his hips. A moment later, Arya hooked her fingers on the edge of his breeches and pulled them down, enough for them to fall, and he quickly stepped out of them. 

They found themselves bare, standing in front of each other, just a few inches apart. Gendry's hand went to her hip, and he was surprised to find how right it felt there. He guided her towards him, and their mirrored smiles convinced them that this was the place they ought to be.

Their bodies touched, and both his hands settled on her hips, while hers went around his neck. She tilted her head and waited for him to bend so their lips could meet. With eyes closed, it didn't matter if they were in the chambers of a princess or in the storeroom of a keep, beyond not having the bitter cold nipping at their bare skin. 

They were just a woman and a man, aching to be joint.

Arya pushed herself against him, letting him feel her puckered nipples, urging him to walk backward blindly until the back of his legs hit her bed. Gendry sat down to ease his access to her body. He discovered that sitting down, he had the perfect height to capture a rosy peak into his ravenous mouth, and he was rewarded with the mewling sounds that she made.

Arya pulled herself away by pushing her palms over his shoulders, making him let go of her nipple with a loud pop. She quickly replaced it with her lips and kept pushing until Gendry had to lie down on the bed, with her on top of him. The downy mattress dipped with their combined weight, and the fabric of the sheets felt luxurious on his back. It was not a sensation he was used to, but it immediately transported him back to the only other featherbed he had ever lain on, and he suddenly felt the same trepidation he did when Davos placed him on that rowboat. 

Having Arya on top of him over sacks of grain had not unleashed the bad memories, but the feeling of deceiving luxuries did. He raised himself and wrapped his arms around her to flip them both, so it was Arya, the one on her back. 

She looked at him with inquisitive eyes.

"You've got your turn already," he lied, unable to share, right then, fears he was not ready to put into words. He hoped one day he'd share with her what had happened with the red woman.

But not yet.

**Arya III**

Arya felt a shiver within her, though she knew her Northern blood did not react that way to the cold. The flutter of her heart was caused instead by Gendry's sudden distance. He was there, against her, but his eyes were leagues away. Voices from her past hissed in her ear, and their mockery had both Northern and Essosi accents. 

Arya drowned their whispers with her own, "what are you waiting for?"

Gendry didn't meet her eyes, and instead, he lowered his head to her skin.

"I don't want to get my bastard in you," he confessed, with his forehead resting in the valley in between her breasts.

The way Gendry said _'my bastard'_ made Arya wince; she tasted the coppery flavor of the tainted blood Gendry believed flowed in his veins. The same he feared would infect her.

It filled her with sorrow that he didn't want to force her to share in his shame, as if she didn't dread her own stigma. In his eyes, she was sinless and not the salted ground she considered herself to be.

"You didn't worry before," she reminded him, running her fingers over his short hair.

"Nor you," he added, lifting his head to look her in the eye.

"Doesn't really matter when one is planning to die, does it?" 

Gendry assented, but he missed that Arya was not only talking about the past.

He sat on his haunches, and his right hand traced the river lines of her scars. The calloused pads of his fingers followed their stream until they stopped right under her navel.

"What if I've already done it?" He asked, and the blue flames of his eyes seared her.

Arya hadn't let the thought reach her before, of a future of black and gray and blue. She flinched at the vision of the _what if r_ eflected in Gendry's eyes. It was not lost to her that the fire in his eyes seemed to wane at her reaction, but he couldn't know that what Arya feared was not a bond made of flesh and blood in between them, nor of her bleeding his blood, but of thinking herself too far in the dark to create life instead of snuffing it.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this," he said, taking his hand from her as if burnt by the flames.

"I'll drink moon tea in the morning," she was quick to reassure him, capturing his wrist in her hand.

"Will it be safe?" He asked, looking for truth in her eyes, "I don't want something bad happening to you because of me."

"I'll be fine. It's still early, and I'll know soon for sure."

**Gendry IV**

Gendry was not privy to the word of women, but in his three and twenty namedays, he had caught enough glimpses of it:

Hushed tales of girls who visited the midwives and left their places empty-handed. 

Whispers of women's burdens when a young and unmarried girl was put to the ground. 

He knew that in all those sad stories, there was a man suspiciously absent from the story, and he was terrified of being the one to bring death to her door.

The only thing he could do was trust her.

"Are you sure?" He pleaded.

"I am," she soothed him as she pulled him back atop of her, "and you better keep going before I go find someone with fewer qualms about bedding me."

"No."

Gendry saw through her, and he knew she was trying to distract him through provocation. Despite his self-imposed limits, something inside him bucked possessively, rebelling at the thought of another man who was not him in between her legs.

"What are you waiting for then?"

It was all she was able to say before he buried himself in her slowly, as neither of them looked away.

The two times that he had been fortunate enough to couple with her, it had been rushed, but by no means any less heavenly. This time, though, there was no threat looming, and he could greedily take the time to revel in the sensations of her tight sheath.

They didn't say anything after then.

Gendry liked how their lovemaking felt familiar, how their bodies recognized each other form the previous times they had coupled. They had plenty to learn yet, and they still stumbled enough to make them smile in the half-light of the chamber. He had not made her peak yet before disrobing, as he had fantasized, but the night was still long enough to take his time and please her like he had daydreamed. 

Despite what Arya may have thought, his experience was laughably brief, but there was something about their relationship through the years, the ease with which they had learned to read each other, and their unconditional trust. Their coupling was just as natural as everything else in between them had always been. 

It was not perfect.

But they had never been ashamed to make mistakes in front of each other, and instead, they were always keen to keep trying until they got it right. 

**Arya IV**

Arya's room was eerily quiet with just the sporadic cracking of the fire to break the silence. While the first time they had lain together they had moved to their sides of their makeshift bed afterward, this time, Gendry had molded himself behind her, in a way that reminded her of the nights his body used to shelter her, all those years before in very different circumstances.

His fingers were dancing absentmindedly over her lower belly, and the gesture made Arya wonder if he would ask her about her old wounds.

"You're thinking too hard," she said, making him chuckle softly. "What's going on in that bullheaded head of yours?"

Gendry took a moment to reply, and then he spoke into her hair.

"Just wondering why I had to lay on some lumpy sacks of grain when you had this bed over here, all along."

Arya simply shrugged.

"Thought you hated the fact that I'm just another rich girl."

She felt the slight rumble of his chest on her back, but it was faint, and she knew his heart was not in it.

"That's not true, is it? You haven't lived like a rich girl since I met you outside King's Landing, have you?"

Despite his mocking, she was confident that Gendry knew her better than that.

"I hadn't slept in one until I came back to Winterfell."

Gendry didn't say anything and instead continued nuzzling behind her ear.

"Tell me the truth now," she beckoned.

He stilled for a few moments before replying.

"I thought you died."

His answer didn't faze her.

"When?"

"After the battle. I went looking for you everywhere. When I finally went into the godswood, I saw you there, in Jon's arms, completely limp," Gendry had to take a moment to breathe since the memory had managed somehow to suck all the air out of his chest. "I fell on my knees, and I forgot how to breathe. I blamed myself."

"That's stupid," she declared, finally turning to face him. "How could that had possibly been your fault?"

"I didn't ask you not to die."

It was a ludicrous thought.

She wanted to say many things, call him stupid once more, but how would making him a promise after sharing pleasure together be any less spellbinding than telling the God of Death ' _Not today'?_

Gendry didn't ask for a reply, though, "you demanded it from me, _'don't you dare die,'_ you said, and while I was standing on a mountain of corpses, I knew I couldn't fail you."

The simplicity of the words that kept him alive made her lose her breath, like a stab to the gut.

"You didn't come to me," she said when she relearned how to breathe as she traced the hard line of his jaw.

"When your sister came, she yelled your name, and you moved. I thanked the gods for that. I left once I knew you were safe."

Arya looked away, towards the flickering light from the fire, willing the forming tears to dissipate.

"You didn't think I'd want to know you were safe as well?"

"I don't matter as much," Gendry whispered to her shoulder blade.

"You matter to me."

She then turned back to face him, with her face so close he felt the heat of her words on his lips.

"I saw you before, you know?" Arya spoke, "during the retreat, as you and Sandor ran under the battlements."

"It was close," he confessed.

"I had my arrow trained on you."

"Did you?"

"I would have done anything in my power to make sure you were safe."

Arya saw how her words lit something in his eyes and emboldened by whatever they had sparked, he kissed her as he pulled her back under him. 

If the previous time had been slow and tender, this one, Gendry took her like the bull he was; his passion making her writhe and arch her back, baring her neck and her chin, for him to nuzzle during each one of his vigorous thrusts. They had ought to have been more careful, but they no longer cared about keeping the sounds low, and instead, they voiced aloud their pleasure. 

When Gendry had used her fingers on her as he fucked her, she had lost herself in her bliss and hardly managed to bite her lip enough to puncture it and prevent herself from yelling his name and announcing to the whole keep the name of her lover. 

Thankfully for them, the thick stonewalls muffled their sounds, allowing her siblings to continue sleeping, blissfully unaware of what was happening in her chamber.

* * *

The harsh training by the Waif conditioned Arya to keep her sleeping light and rouse at the slightest perception of movement. Of course, the fact that she had slept on rough surfaces for most of her life also meant that no matter how careful Gendry had tried to be, the dip of the feather mattress was enough to come out of her slumber.

"Where are you going? She asked, turning to see him picking up the breeches from the stone floor.

"I need to leave before the sun's out," he explained. "I'd rather not chance your siblings find me leaving your chambers."

"Killing the Night King should afford me some luxuries," she added, resting her chin on his still bare shoulder.

"Is that what I am, _m' lady_?" Gendry asked, turning his head, "a luxury to be had?"

The way her own words denounced her station, even if in jest, stung, but she was able to keep it from showing in her face.

"You're more than that, you know that."

"Go back to sleep," he suggested, turning to hold her in his arms and lay her carefully back on her bed. "They'll soon need you to help, and we barely slept."

"You slept just as little. Why should I rest when you won't?"

"Because I'll enjoy thinking of you bare as a babe in this featherbed of yours when I go back to my cot."

Arya knew Gendry wouldn't be going back to his cot, she knew he'd march right into the forge and start working, but she didn't call him on it.

"You'll come to me again?" She asked instead.

"You'll be the death of me, woman," he replied, bending to capture her lips in one las indulgence.

A knock on the big oak door stilled them suddenly, making them part. Arya placed her extended finger over her lips to signal him to hush.

"Lady Stark?" a meek voice called, breaking the tension.

"What is it, Alys?" Arya called, and she climbed over Gendry to get off her bed, grabbing the robe laid over at the foot of her bed. Wrapping her naked body in it, she walked towards the door. 

"It's your sister, _m' lady._ "

Arya opened the door slightly, knowing the angle would make it impossible for the servant girl to see the man on her bed.

"What does Sansa need?"

"She asked that you meet her in the family solar to break your fast with her."

"Thank you, Alys. Tell my sister I will be there shortly."

The girl curtsied and left, and Arya closed and barred the door. When she turned around, she could see that Gendry was already dressed.

"Do I need to jump out of the window?"

"Don't be stupid. It's still dark. Sansa is already in the solar, she won't be coming this way."

Gendry walked to the door, and once he reached Arya, he gave her one last kiss.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me like I did you a favor," she chastised him.

He simply smiled that lopsided smile of his, and she then saw him leave through the hallways that had led him there.

* * *

After breaking her fast with Sansa, Arya took a brisk walk towards the Maester's Turret. She had eaten absentmindedly, nodding from time to time to whatever it was Sansa was telling her, and instead she planned her strategy for what needed to be done. Arya had considered using a face, but it seemed a waste just to procure what she needed. She could have found her way undetected, but there was a risk she'd get the wrong thing, and she rebelled at the idea of proceeding as if she had done something shameful. 

There were over two hundred steps to reach the maester's chambers, she and Bran had counted them when they were little, along with the number of steps in each stairwell in Winterfell, back when Bran would walk.

She climbed each one of those steps with determination, and once she reached the door, she knocked on it confidently.

"My lady," Maester Wolkan greeted her, "is there anything I can do for you?"

"I came to get some-"

"Milk of the poppy," the man interrupted her, "is your throat bothering you still?"

"No, I can swallow without pain. I came for something else. Moon tea."

"My lady I…"

Arya just stared him down.

"Of course, times have been trying. I did procure it for your sister, back when Lord Bolton… What I'm trying to say is that I understand. With so many men, and the wildings… no need for you to be burdened with the consequences, not on top of everything else."

Arya knew the man was trying to excuse her to make up a story that would put his own mind at ease. A tale that robbed her of agency, relegating her to someone who things were done to.

"You do know I killed the Night King," she reminded him.

"Yes, of course, my lady. We owe you our lives."

"Is the only way I could have bedded a man by force?” She asked, lifting her eyebrow defiantly.

The maester stared for a while until Arya saw the realization dawn on him.

"Oh, I see, my lady," the maester cleared his throat loudly. "Do you know how it must be taken?"

"I've never taken it, but I am familiar with its use."

"Very well, come with me."

The maester led Arya back to his study and opened a cupboard, from where he pulled several vials and containers. He brought the materials to his working table and mixed different herbs and a few drops of oils in a mortar, and then he used the pestle to mix it all together. 

"Steep a spoonful of this paste in boiling water, and drink the tea daily, for as long as you plan to take the man to your bed."

"And if I don't…"

"I've seen plenty of bastards made because their lady mothers thought they only had to take the tea once after a coupling. I've also seen many more fine young ladies buried in the ground because they were given jugs full of the tea when the babe had already quickened in their wombs. It matters not, my lady, if you bed your man every night or not, you still need to drink your bitter tea each day, for as long as the liaison lasts, and track your courses without fail."

"I should be getting my moon blood soon, no more than six days if I'm not…"

Arya had never shied away from any opponent, and yet those words silenced her voice.

"Very well, if a sennight goes and you haven't bled, stop taking the tea and come to see me."

"And if I do bleed?"

"Thank the gods and keep drinking your tea," he replied. "And come to see me when you run out."

"Thank you, Maester Wolkan."

"My lady, if I may, your lord brother-"

"It's none of his business," Arya interrupted him, the tone of her voice taking away any trace of doubt, "as it is no business of mine who my siblings fuck."

The maester blushed furiously at Arya's words.

"Of course, my lady. I'm here to serve you."

"Have a good day, maester."

"You too, Lady Arya."

* * *

In her room, she heated water in a small metal kettle in the fireplace. The dark paste dissolved easily, tinting the water in a smoky color in her mug. She carried it in her hands and sat crossed-legged on her bed, the bitter smell of her tea somewhat masked by the musky scent of Gendry's, still lingering in the bedclothes.

**Gendry V**

No one had put him in charge of the forge when they first arrived at Winterfell, yet somehow it happened. Mayhaps it was that he had arrived with the King in the North, or that he had looked the part of the most experienced smith. Mayhaps it had been his assertiveness or the stories about how he had gone north of the wall to capture a wight.

After the battle, there were just a couple of green boys left from the group of smiths that worked the dragonglass. They were more needed rebuilding Winterfell and helping to erect the funerary pyres, though. And so, Gendry was left in the forge, that whole area of the keep his domain. Once he started smithing again, mending weapons and making nails alike on his own, Arya would find her way there, bringing food for him, and observing him work for hours.

The moment he was out of the Great Keep, sufficiently sure that no one had seen him coming out of a place where he had no right to be, Gendry had considered sleeping for a few more moments in his cot but decided that he needed a distraction from all the ways he had betrayed the trust of House Stark the previous night. He had been eager to get the flames going and let the monotony of banging the steel into shape temper his memories of Arya.

He had been busy by the flames when she arrived and settled herself atop a working countertop, she grabbed an apple from the basket she set next to her and took a bite. Gendry had sensed her there, and then the sound of her taking a bite had confirmed his suspicions.

"Isn't that supposed to be for me?" He asked as he turned to face her.

"Who says that this food was meant for you?"

"So now, not only will you ogle me while I work, but you'll have your meal while you do it?"

"It's not just about watching you," Arya explained with an alluring smile.

"Oh, m' lady finds me useful for more than just watching."

"You know I do, and you either stop calling me that or watching will be all I do."

Gendry covered the hand holding the apple with his and guided it to his own mouth, to take a large bite, while he looked directly into her eyes.

"Fair enough, Arry," he said once he was done chewing.

"You haven't called me that in years."

It was true, but the name had bloomed out of his mouth effortlessly.

"It felt right," he replied with a shrug.

"Does that mean I still look like a little boy to you?"

Gendry chuckled loudly at that as he shook his head.

"No, believe me, you do not look like a boy at all."

His hand hooked behind her head and pulled her to him in a searing kiss, determined to show her how she really looked to him.

They had just separated in time when a servant came to summon Gendry to his solar, and a furtive look passed between them, acknowledging that whatever plans they had were likely to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't wait to hear what you think of this one. The next one will be posted in 2 days or so. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment, it really does mean a lot to me.


	3. Sennight 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gendry is asked by Jon to oversee the night crew helping get rid of the carcass of the ice dragon. Arya and Gendry meet in the armory. Four Starks remain together and yet, they feel lonelier than ever. There is talk of what is to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had planned to end it on the third part, but I have now decided to add a fourth that covers what happens from lightning the pyres to the immediate aftermath of the feast. 
> 
> I hope you like it.
> 
> PS. This one is for coach Laura, for keeping me on track.

[ ](https://imgur.com/G30V3eJ)

**Gendry VI**

Gendry's muscles were on fire. Most of his life, he had known what hard labor felt like, and his arms were used to hammering steel day in and day out, but his new assignment at Winterfell had been testing his endurance.

Four days before, he had been summoned by Jon along with every able-bodied man in the keep, and they had been asked to aid disposing of the ice dragon carcass. The first attempts had proven unsuccessful, and so it had been necessary to assemble two different crews to work day and night since the body of the dragon had started festering and oozing. Gendry had gotten the night shift, and Jon asked him to oversee all the men who were working during the nighttime, given the trust he had in him.

He had even said it like that.

"You've proven a trustworthy friend, like our fathers were," Jon had said, the second part looking away.

Gendry had just nodded, looking at the ground to hide his shame. When he raised his head, he looked sideways, out of the corner of his eye, to Arya, standing with her sister. They had both shared a look, knowing that it would make their encounters a lot more difficult.

* * *

"You look like shit," Arya said to him when she met him after his first shift in the little room where he slept, off of the smithy. She had been sitting cross-legged on his cot.

"I feel like shit, and I do not smell any better."

Arya stood up and walked towards him, one hand extending to help him rid himself of his cloak.

"Don't touch me," he said, moving away before Arya was able to set her fingers on him. 

Arya's hand retreated quickly, and her face fell at the rejection.

"The stuff that oozes out of the dragon is foul, and it burns if it touches your skin," he was quick to explain. "My leathers are covered in it, I don't want it getting on you."

"You should take it off."

"I'll use the water bucket in the smithy," Gendry explained as he went back to the forge.

"You'll catch you death if you use that cold water," Arya warned him, leaning on the entryway.

"M'lady suggests I ask the servants to draw me a bath in the middle of the smithy, instead?"

"Don't be an idiot. Get the fires going, we can heat up the water enough, so it's not freezing."

Gendry got the flames going with ease, while Arya brought the bucket over. He took it from her and hung it over the hook they had for those purposes. Once the water was warm enough, they set it on the workbench. Gendry took off his cloak and his leather gloves while Arya, still wearing hers, wetted a rag and started to wipe the surface of his doublet.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? Helping you clean."

"And how is it going to look when someone comes in here, and they see your ladyship cleaning a lowly blacksmith?"

"Who's coming here at this time? Dawn hasn't broken yet."

"Fine," Gendry caved in.

"How is it going, with the dragon? I mean besides the oozing."

"It's a rotten work. I knew there was no way it could be taken out of the keep in one piece."

Gendry's words interrupted Arya in her task.

"In one piece?" She asked, opening her eyes more than she was used to.

"It started coming apart," he explained with a grimace. "I knew it wouldn't work. Even if we had gotten it to the part of the wall that was taken down during the battle. There is no way it would have fit. So, it had to be split into pieces."

"Sounds awful."

"You don't want to know just how much. We had to use axes. The guts stink, and the first men who started hatching it were not properly covered. They are now at Maester Wolkan's being treated for their wounds. I was lucky enough to be in the second group."

"Are you burnt?" Arya asked while she checked his neck and pulled at this collar, trying to see if he was hurt.

"I'm fine. We learned from the first group."

Arya let the rag fall to the floor.

"You're done. Take off your leathers."

"Tempting as it is, I don't have the energy for fucking."

"Who said anything about fucking? The stuff may not have touched your skin, but you still stink."

He took a new rag from the workbench and getting it wet, he wiped the sweat and remnants of his hard labor from his skin. Once clean, he walked back to his little room and dropped his clothes on the floor. Naked as his nameday and dead tired, he let himself fall on the simple bed, while Arya disrobed until she was wearing only her tunic. She then lay down next to him, wrapping herself from behind, with her arms tucked under his.

"I went to see the maester after you left my chambers," Arya informed him.

Her words made him dizzy, but he didn't turn and stared instead at the dirty wall.

"Were you hurt? Did I…?"

"No, stupid," she huffed. "For moon tea. I've started drinking it."

It was only then that it occurred to Gendry that he had no idea how it worked, beyond knowing that women who didn't want their lovers' seed to catch drank the tea to avoid it and that if it quickened, they could use it to rid themselves of their babes, at considerable risk.

"Are you supposed to drink it more than once?" He asked her half curious and half concerned.

"The maester said every day without fail," she responded, and then took a moment to add, "as long as I plan to bed the man."

Gendry felt Arya's words warm on his back, but much more hung in the air. One notion was dispelled though: any doubt that the thing in between them was a one-night affair.

"Will he tell Jon, your siblings?"

"He won't betray my confidence. And if he did, it's none of their business."

"Have you…"

"Bled?"

"Aye."

"It should happen in the next few days. Maester Wolkan told me to come to him if a sennight passes, and it has not yet come."

They didn't have to speak about what they were thinking, both breathing deeply, chests rising and falling in sync.

"You will tell me, right?"

"It won't be the end of the world," Arya whispered against his skin, in the middle of his shoulder blades. "You will be fine."

Gendry wanted to turn around to face her, but there were things he didn't feel brave enough to say to her face.

"It is you I worry about, not me. It's riskier for the woman if it catches."

The thought scared him, whether she went to the maester to rid her body of it with potions, or if she let it quicken. Gendry knew the odds.

"I don't want anything bad happening to you."

"I'll be fine, I promise."

He had fallen asleep to the sound of her voice, his large body sheltered by her small one, and the promise that all that he cared about would be safe and sound. When he woke at dusk, she was gone, and for a moment, he questioned if she had been there at all.

That had been four days before, and since then, they had only seen each other sporadically, sharing just a word here and there. However, Gendry could almost swear that Arya came to him as he slept because he'd wake with her scent in his cot.

**Arya V**

Those long days when they were kept apart by the hard work of making Winterfell livable again, there were things she had imagined saying, conversations with the Gendry in her head. She had gone to his room a few times, when he was asleep, and lay down alongside him, letting his rhythmic breathing settle the turmoil in her head. 

She had tried talking to Jon, finding again that complicity they had growing up, but there seemed to be so much weighing him down. It shouldn't have bothered her as much since she had hidden plenty from him as well, unsure how her brother would handle her past. There was something in Jon's mind, that much she was sure, that kept furrowing his forehead as deeply as a scar. 

Jon didn't have time for her. 

Arya felt the need to drown her melancholy with Gendry's groans in her ear as he spent himself inside her flesh, but then her moon blood had come. While she knew, from the courtesans in Braavos, that coupling was possible during flowering, she didn't feel like their intimacy was yet ready for it. 

Instead, when her chores in Winterfell were done, she took to wandering her old home, the buildings and the grounds. Arya couldn't be sure if she was chasing memories, trying to reignite some sense of belonging or if she was mapping it in her mind, so she would never forget any inch of the place if she went away.

* * *

The chance encounter with Gendry happened in the armory, of all places. Arya had started exploring the tower, remembering how she used to sneak in when she was little. More than once, Ser Rodrik Cassel had found her there, admiring the swords, and he had marched her down to her father's solar every single time. 

She had woken up to an unsoiled rag between her legs for the first time in four days, and she had been planning to go to Gendry later, so when he finally woke, he'd find her naked in his cot. Her good mood had gone sour though, when she broke her fast with her siblings, getting caught in the chasm between Jon and Sansa, ever disagreeing on the topic of the queen, and the impending siege of King's Landing. 

And so she had come to the armory to run her fingers over the disheveled pommels of the swords. She was trying to forget the current Winterfell with one long gone. When the door opened unexpectedly, pulling her from her reverie, she turned to see Gendry, standing by the entrance carrying a crate.

"Arya," he exhaled, clearly surprised of finding her there.

She smiled at him and said, "I thought you asleep."

"We're done, with the dragon," he explained. "Jon asked me to mend the broken weapons and craft whatever is needed. I came here to check the swords and see which ones I should bring with me to the forge."

A thought seemed to pass between them, realizing there they were there, finally together and alone after many days, both awake.

Gendry placed the crate on the floor and closed the door gently with his foot. The moment the light from outside disappeared and only the flicker of a lantern remained, they both walked towards each other, the reticence of their first encounters now long gone. 

Their kisses may not have had the same frenzy of their first, but they were no less passionate. Gendry pressed her firmly to him, one hand on her lower back, and the other behind her head. 

"I'm done with my moon blood," she blurted out.

It took a moment for him to figure out what it meant.

"So, you're not-"

"No," she interrupted him and shut his mouth with another kiss.

**Arya and Gendry II**

When they parted and looked into each other's eyes, the faint light from the lantern revealed their mirrored black eyes. Gendry's emboldened fingers started pulling at the laces of her jerkin, but Arya captured them.

Looking directly at him, she asked, "how long until someone comes in here?"

Gendry's hand fell abruptly to his sides as if the pads of his fingers had been burnt.

"Just the breeches," she clarified, and Gendry brought her mouth against his once more, letting her feel him grinning on her lips as he tugged on the laces of her breeches. When they were loose, he grasped her hips and turned her around. With her back to his front, he pulled her tightly against him, grinding his hard cock on her backside, and his hands busied themselves, loosening her jerkin enough, for the linen tunic to billow on her front. Gendry's hands sneaked under the soft grey fabric until they cupped her teats. He squeezed them gently, and brushed the tight tips with his thumbs, making Arya arch against him, baring her neck so he could bend down to kiss any bit of skin that he could reach. He then let his right hand slide down, to bury itself in her breeches and smallclothes until he reached her taut pearl.

A low moan rewarded him, and with his lips against the shell of her ear, he whispered, "I want to make you do that some more while I fuck you."

Arya liked that Gendry didn't use fancy words. He wasn't known for having many words. And though Gendry had always favored silence and grunts with everyone else, he had never had any qualms about bickering with Arya, sharing with her all of his thoughts and wants. He never swallowed any of his words in her presence just because they were simple, or coarse, or lewd, and she was a lady. 

Arya liked him like that, outspoken and foul-mouthed.

"Take my leathers off, then." She challenged him, placing her palms firmly on the sturdy table in the middle of the room, covered in swords and daggers.

Gendry didn't need to be asked twice, he hooked his fingers on the back of her breeches and pulled them down, revealing her milky white cheeks. His mouth felt suddenly dry at the sight of her, slightly bent over the table, her lovely arse bared for him. He knocked her foot lightly with his boot to widen her stance, as much as the bunched leathers at her feet permitted. He lowered himself, with his hand on her hip, holding her still, to kiss his way down, trailing kisses over the soft cheeks, and around until he reached the velvet skin of her inner thighs.

Arya felt herself blush at the new sensation, his mouth advancing until he reached her lips, and his tongue tasted and probed her. It lasted just a few moments, but they were enough to leave her panting.

He reached back up then to rub himself against the sensitive flesh.

"Now," his lady commanded, and Gendry pulled clumsily at his own laces. As soon as his frantic hands were able to loosen the ties enough, he yanked down the leather enough to free his erection. 

Arya had braced herself, expecting him to buck into her; instead, the velvet tip of his cock probed carefully, finding its sheath. They both sighed in unison when their flesh met, and he gently eased himself within her, letting Arya shelter him from it all. The new angle thrilled them both, lighting the spark to burn all the pent-up lust of the previous days. 

The downy hair of his upper thighs brushed against her hamstrings, his knees molding to the back of hers, and propelling her lithe body forward. The fit felt right, familiar despite them never having been together in that room or in that particular position. Gendry's left hand came to the table right next to hers, the heel of his hand supporting his weight, while his fingers brushed Arya's. He leaned over her, with his right hand still grasping her hip tightly. Arya would have liked to feel his firm bare chest against her back, but the hastiness meant they were still wearing their unlaced jerkins. She could feel his heat, though, radiating through two layers of leathers. Gendry's mouth searched for her nape, nuzzling the baby hair that escaped her Northern plait. The hand that held her hip traveled north to cradle her chin and guide it gently, easing the path of his mouth up to her neck and behind her ear.

As Gendry's thrusts quickened, the blades on the table started to shake, adding a clinking sound to their sighs and pants. The clang of the steel grew louder, and Arya couldn't stop herself from giggling, which made Gendry chuckle out loud, burying his face in between her shoulder blades. When Arya felt him rise, she turned back, as much as the position allowed her, trying to reach for his lips. He met her halfway, with his large hand holding her head. His rhythm had been halted during their laughing fit, and while they were kissing, Gendry attempted to restart it. He rutted gracelessly for a bit until they had to let go to resume their coupling. Arya looked forward once more, and Gendry placed a kiss on her shoulder. He then gave her a playful pat to her backside, eager to continue what they had started. It was Arya who led then, rocking steadily back and forth, and giving a sporadic side-to-side sway, breaking his pace, but driving him mad with want. 

Gendry's hands grasped her hips tightly, making his knuckles white. He then released their grip and slid them down to massage her cheeks, and he gave them a squeeze. He then proceeded to slide them up her lower back, as they moved up, his thumbs grazed the ridge of her spine and pushed her forward and down, making Arya extend her hands forward and lower her chest to the table. Arya could feel the rough surface of the wood grazing her nipples. The rugged texture reminded her of his callused hands whenever they played with her breasts. The thought making her core turn molten metal. Gendry's low growl announced her he had sensed her growing need, and she thought fleetingly, that despite being Gendry who had her bent over and full to the brim of him, it was him who was her prey.

The swelling of her sheath overwhelmed him, and he lost the grip on his control. His pace became relentless, and the change in the angle and tempo pushed the top of his cock to graze a sensitive spot by pure luck, as Arya raised her behind. Gendry had worried he was about to spend himself before her, but her sudden frenzy let him known to repeat the motion to keep her whimpering some more. They were wild by then, each lunge moving the heavy table slightly forward, surely marking the stone floor.

In the back of his head, the fear of being found drowned, no longer caring about their moans and pants. Suddenly, Arya let out a primal howl and went limp in every muscle but the one tightening around his cock. That snug heat was enough for Gendry to spill his seed inside of her.

"I made a mess of you," he finally said when he remembered how to breathe normally.

"It was worth it," she replied, smiling with her cheek still resting on the table.

Gendry disengaged and tucked himself back into his breeches. He then pulled her to her feet with him, making sure to steady her before he let her go. When he was convinced that she wouldn't fall, he took the rag tied around his neck, and he gently cleaned her. When he was done, he bent to pick up the leather around her ankles, and he lifted it up.

"I can do that myself, you know?"

From where she was standing, she could see a lopsided smile on his face.

"It's no bother, and if I was the one making the mess, I should be the one to set it to rights," Gendry replied as he stood up.

After that, they only shared a lingering kiss before they parted to go back to their chores.

**Gendry VII**

It had been getting easier, and he was becoming greedier with every new kiss, with every lingering touch.

Every time they shared their bodies, it would become harder not to think they belonged together.

He was taking liberties a lowly blacksmith should not.

When Arya walked away from him, and the fog of her spell cleared, Gendry's doubt would creep back in. Despite the mystery of the years they were apart, of the places and hands that taught her to throw daggers with perfect accuracy and carved their marks on her body, she was still a princess, and he was still a lowborn bastard.

But it was hard not to let himself be convinced that lying together was right when she fit so perfectly under him when she wrapped herself around him, and he'd crawl under her skin.

It was madness, and Gendry knew it. One of those days, he was sure, the growing familiarity between them was going to make him forget his place, and he was going to hold her by her hips and kiss her soundly in front of her siblings and the dragon queen.

The way she looked at him didn't help; she ought to be scandalized, Gendry thought, every time he had the nerve to look at her and imagine all the ways he wanted to have her. He was sure his face had to betray how he remembered her naked, from the less than a handful times they had fucked already, whenever she was close enough that he'd be able to taste her scent. He was a greedy bastard, and whenever she neared him, some primal instinct kicked in and made him want to lock horns with men who talked or looked at her, intrigued by her allure. His blood thumped in his ears, wanting to claim her as his. He wanted others to know that she was his as much as he was already hers.

But that was a mad dream, just the Baratheon blood in his veins, wanting something that could never be his.

**Arya VI**

As the days brought them all closer to the time to light the pyres, a red hot sting in the middle of her rib cage started to spread. It had begun like a perfectly aimed spear that pierced her clearly through. The puncture started spreading, tearing apart her flesh, growing the hollow feeling in the middle of her chest. The hole widened every time that Jon was consumed with burdens he only kept to himself, giving her a forced smile and a promise that they'd talk later. 

The hollowness grew as Sansa saw through her, and instead, she focused all her attention in the enemy she was persistent on keeping close.

The wound almost split her in two with Bran's silence. 

She was a foreigner in her own land, and she laughed bitterly at the irony: she had failed time and again trying to erase Arya Stark, but the moment she reclaimed her name and set foot in Winterfell, she was finally No One. 

She didn't feel like Arya Stark, not even when Gendry would moan her name against her breast as he came undone. In his arms, she was just a woman sharing herself with a man that seemed to be meant for her. With him, she didn't have to choose a face to wear, but she was not absolutely sure which one of all the Aryas she had been stared back at her when she stood in front of her mirror afterward.

Arya knew that she had made a choice one day at the Crossroads, choosing her family and Winterfell instead of her revenge, but every day she kept feeling something calling her south, to pick up the list that gave her a direction and a meaning that she no longer had.

There was one name left on her list that she had not had a chance to cross. Arya knew that if the dragon queen had her way, their armies would already be marching south to cross it herself. It wouldn't be the first time a name on her list had been crossed by somebody else. And even if she had relished on knowing that Joffrey had died twisted in pain at his own wedding, it still tasted bitter, not getting a chance to have him look into her eyes and know that it was the price he had to pay for killing her father. 

And just like that, it was becoming more and more apparent that Cersei would be killed by dragon fire, just for the throne and nothing else. 

The day after the armory, she had her supper with her siblings in the lord's solar.

"Is the queen not joining us this evening?" Sansa asked.

"She is feeling indisposed. She's still in mourning for Ser Jorah," Jon was quick to add.

"She is not the only one she lost someone," Sansa interjected, shaking her head. "How many people did you lose Jon? Theon, Edd, Lyanna Mormont, who may I remind you, was the one who named you King in the North before anyone else."

"Sansa," Jon pleaded.

"Lyanna Mormont, a girl of merely two and ten, killed a giant with her last breath," Bran spoke to no one. 

"I would have liked to know her better," Arya added wistfully.

"I didn't say she was the only one mourning, Sansa. And besides, I thought you'd probably enjoy having supper only the four of us."

Sansa's forked played with the food on her plate as she continued, "you remember now that we're family?"

Before Jon could respond, Bran spoke to everyone, and none at all, "is a pack only made by blood family?"

"Bran, not now," Jon pleaded.

"You don't have time for Bran anymore," Sansa accused him. "When was the last time you spent time with Arya? And you only fight with me."

"I don't fight with you."

"But you think me wrong because I don't side with her."

Despite them being in the North during the winter, the room felt stifling to Arya.

Jon looked into Sansa's eyes, and once more, he tried to explain, "I made I promise."

"The North didn't." 

"The North is not only you!" Jon yelled, finally losing his temper.

"I can't stay in the middle of this anymore," Arya said, at last, standing up from her chair.

"Arya, please stay," Jon implored her.

When she still walked towards the door, Sansa then asked, "where are you going?"

Bran spoke then, for the first time seemingly in context with what was happening, "let her go. She's going where she needs to be." 

**Gendry VIII**

He was already in bed when she came into his room. Despite her attempt at donning her stoic mask, he was able to sense her restlessness.

"What's eating at you?" He asked, sitting up and planting his feet on the floor. He was completely bare, but she already knew he slept nude, and he sincerely doubted that she'd be scandalized by it. 

Arya paced the small room, and then she turned to him to speak, "must something be eating at me to come to find you?"

"No, but something is, isn't it?"

"It's just my siblings."

"Come here then," he invited her, opening his arms for her.

Arya strip of her clothes in front of him. Once bare, she walked towards him, and she sat astride on his lap.

"Your cot is too small," she pointed out. "Not sure if we'll fit."

Gendry smiled, knowing what she was referring to since they had fit just fine those nights when she had come to him as he slept and cuddled to him.

"Got used to your feather bed, then?" He teased.

"You're the idiot who's afraid of coming to my chambers again," she said, kissing him with her arms wrapped around his neck.

When they parted, he added, "I like my head attached to my neck."

"Who's lying now?" Arya confronted him with the look she always wore when she called him on his horseshit. "You're not worried about my brother killing you when he finds you fucking me on my bed, because he could just as easily kill you for fucking me in the armory or on this cot."

She got him there. 

He'd rather Jon didn't know what they had been doing altogether. Maybe one day, he'd be able to tell him what Arya meant to him, but Gendry would prefer if Jon didn't feel betrayed by the secret encounters he kept having with the sister he never confessed to having met. 

The truth was that while the night in her bedchamber had been more than memorable, he didn't want to meet her there again. Gendry wondered what it was about her chamber that scared him. He couldn't deny that it reminded him of the one in Dragonstone, but it was more than that. Loving Arya in the chamber of a lord's daughter made him remember the vast distance between their stations in life. 

"I'm just a bastard blacksmith, I don't feel comfortable in a rich folk bedchamber."

"Not even if you get to fuck me on a large bed?" The tempting woman on his lap said, making sure to rub herself against his length. 

"I think I fucked you just fine bent over on that table in the armory," he replied, and he used his hand on her behind to press her tightly against him, upping the ante.

"Fuck me then on your narrow cot."

"As m' lady commands."

He lifted her slightly from his lap, but then he surprised her when he guided her to turn around, so her back was against his chest.

"What are you doing?"

He set his chin on her shoulder, and searching for her ear with his lips, he whispered, "I've dreamed of taking you like this, so I can touch you better while we fuck."

They didn't talk after that. Gendry right hand busied itself probing in between her nether lips gently, while in contrast, his left squeezed her teats roughly. Arya lay back on him, arching her neck over his shoulder, baring her neck, and Gendry alternated between kissing and sucking, leaving a trail of red bruises on it, while Arya's hand reached back to rub the prickly hair on his nape.

Her whimpers told him when she was ready, and even if they hadn't, his fingers had enough proof. Both of his hands left their endeavors then, and went to her hips, her unbridled protest making him feel smug. 

"I'll keep going, I just need to be inside of you first."

Arya didn't speak, but she supported herself with her palms on his thighs to help him raise her just enough to line himself with her, and then she lowered herself all around him. His hands went back to their places, north and south, determined to overwhelm her with pleasure while they both moved against each other. Gendry took his time, not picking the pace, despite what Arya's impatient rocking of her hips was trying to do, and instead, he kept thrusting as slow as his lust would permit. When neither could stand it anymore, their rhythm increased, both of them growling. Gendry's thrusts were frantic, and he bit her shoulder to stop himself from yelling her name and announcing to the whole castle just in whose sweet cunt he had been lost. Arya turned her face towards him and only sighed his name into his ear as she peaked, making Gendry sure he'd never hear anything as wondrous as that, spending himself inside her. 

**Arya VIII**

Later that night, they lay together in Gendry's cot, bodies intertwined in the narrow bed. It was rare for Arya to feel so at ease, but she did. She was on her back, with Gendry's head on her chest, and his legs tangled with hers. As she played with the short black hairs on his head, she could feel him running his fingers around her areola, teasing her nipple into puckering just for the joy of observing it.

"Jon wants to march south soon," he said quietly.

"His queen wants him to," Arya was quick to reply.

Turning his head towards her, he asked, "and you don't?" 

He didn't have to question who was south, and Arya knew that Gendry had heard her list enough times to know her stake in the war to come. 

"Not for the same reasons."

"I thought you'd like her," he added, turning back his attention to his plaything. "You used to like that one with the dragon. You told me about her once or a thousand times."

"Visenya."

"Aye, that one."

Mayhaps if things had happened differently. 

"I don't dislike her," Arya finally said after a long pause. "I don't know her enough for that."

"Then what is it?"

"Jon and Sansa keep butting heads over her," she replied, letting her fingers slide down, over his neck and in between his shoulder blades, making him shiver.

Feeling at a disadvantage, Gendry wrapped Arya in his arms, and he twisted them both until she was resting on top of him. 

"Your sister doesn't look the type to butt heads with anyone," he said, placing one of his arms under his head, and keeping Arya steady with the other on her lower back.

"She has her own ways to do that."

"Why don't they have you more in the war council?" 

"What makes you think I'm not?" She asked in return, crossing her arms under her chest to give herself a boost, so she could look at him directly while they spoke. 

"Sure, you go there plenty, but why aren't they having you lead? I bet they wouldn't be out of sorts if it was you planning what comes next."

"What makes you so sure about that?"

Her heart faltered for a bit, and despite her knowing the answer, she wondered if Gendry knew about the Faceless Men and that there was a satchel full of dead faces just under him that night when he slept in her bed.

"Does Jon know what you're capable of doing?" He asked with his hand on her cheek.

Against her fears, she asked, "do you?" 

"I may not know exactly what you did wherever the fuck you were, but I've seen you throwing knives with perfect aim like it was nothing at all, and Davos told me how he saw you taking down dozens of wights with the spear I made you as if they were made of straw."

"You took down dozens of wights yourself," Arya reminded him.

"Aye, but I also know that it took all my strength, and still, I didn't do what you did."

Arya silenced him with a languid kiss, fully knowing that she didn't want to continue that conversation.

"Will you go south?" He asked without missing a beat, as soon as her lips left his, "for your own reasons?"

Arya could sense his apprehension in the tone of his voice, and the restlessness of his heartbeat under her. 

Instead of responding, she asked a question of her own, "will you? After all, you came here following my brother."

"I've made promises," he said, but Arya didn't give him time to say anything else, and she couldn't know what he was planning to say, but at that moment she didn't want to hear him say that he'd march south because he had pledged himself to Jon or Queen Daenerys.

Once the kiss ended, she broke apart and spoke, him still with eyes closed, "you know she'll kill you if she knows you are one of Robert's."

"I don't plan on letting her know," he replied, pulling her flat on his chest. 

"Good," she answered to his heart, as they both let their lids close.

* * *

Arya woke up before the sun was out and tore himself from Gendry's embrace. He did not wake, but his hand had tried to keep her against him. She had dressed in silence and left, making sure to keep to the shadows, as she crossed the courtyard and walked towards the main keep. Luck would have it that she ran into her sister on her way to her chamber. 

"You woke up early," she greeted Sansa.

"Not as early as you, it seems. I went by your chamber before, and you were not there. It must have been night still when you left since you even had the time to make your bed."

Neither of them was stupid, and Arya was sure her sister knew she had spent her night in someone else's bed, but she'd wager that Sansa wouldn't know Gendry's name. 

"You are right, it was still night," she replied unapologetically.

"Do you want to break your fast with me? Mayhaps have some tea?"

Sansa didn't seem scandalized by the implication, and Arya felt no need to deny anything, nor to disclose any more either.

"I have my tea every day without fail, Sansa, if that is what you are worried about."

"Very well then, brew your tea and meet me in the solar after. There is much to talk about."

"About Jon and the queen?" Arya asked a bit insolently. 

"No, or at least not just about them. It's about the pyres. They're almost finished. After lightening them aflame, we are to have a feast afterward."

"Can we even afford a feast?" She asked her sister a bit surprised, "I thought we barely have enough to feed everybody, let alone two dragons."

"Well, her grace has called for it."

It was unusual for Sansa to just give in, Arya was confident.

"And you'll just go ahead with it?"

Sansa took a breath and then replied, with words Arya did not like one bit, "I will when it is supposed to be in honor of the hero of Winterfell."

Right then, Arya wished it was not the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, only one more to go. 
> 
> What do you think? Is this matching your own headcanons about the time in between?
> 
> Let me know.


	4. Sennight 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pyres for the fallen are lit, and after the crowd is disbanded, Arya finds the way to slip away and meet with Gendry. She takes him to the First Keep, and they spend time together where no one can find them. After their encounter, Arya visits the crypts and thinks of her ghosts. 
> 
> Gendry is summoned to Jon's solar, and he is asked what he plans to do. Their conversation is interrupted by the queen and Varys.
> 
> Arya gets ready for the feast, and while she bathes, she and Sansa have a heart to heart. 
> 
> At the last minute, Arya decides not to attend the banquet, and instead, she waits for Gendry outside the forge.  
> Gendry is uncomfortable at the feast and has a conversation with the Hound. When he feels brave enough to leave and look for Arya, the queen stops him. 
> 
> Arya waits for Gendry shooting her arrows and finally deciding to leave Winterfell and ask Gendry a crucial question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lastly, I want to say that I did not like what happened, but I wanted to write this whole period in between in a way that made sense for me, and that treated the characters more justly. I hope that, at the very least, I was able to give context to their actions and that I treated them respectfully.

[ ](https://imgur.com/dvvohTR)

**Arya IX**

She stood at the front of the line, her sight of the unlit pyres holding thousands of bodies unobstructed. It seemed that while death didn't discriminate, funerary rites did. The highborn got the first spot to mourn their losses while the smallfolk would have to cry in the back. Even in the pyres, those of good birth got the first places, while the unnamed thousands remained behind. 

As Jon addressed the crowd, Arya stared ahead. She didn't have to turn to know that Gendry stood a few rows behind, his eyes warm on her shoulder. 

She had been tasked with lighting the pyre where Beric's body rested. Arya ignored if it was because her brother learned she had known him in life, or because someone had let him know that the knight had given his life for hers. It didn't matter. Arya knew of Beric Dondarrion's many deaths, but also that she had prayed to the God of Death to let her add to his tally. In the end, he had been forgiven, and his name wiped from her list, just like the Hound's. 

Beric's voice still resonated in her ear as he whispered _'live'_ while he welcomed his final death in her name.

* * *

The pyres would have to burn for days, allowing the stench of death to saturate the air. Once Jon's impassioned speech was over, and the flames alit, the crowd had been dismissed, but not before Queen Daenerys announced that a feast would be held in the Great Hall, in honor of the fallen and in celebration of the victory. Arya felt herself groan, knowing from her sister of the queen's intention to toast her as the hero of Winterfell. 

As the crowds were disbanded, she turned to find Gendry among the multitude, and she wished he'd be able to gather what she meant to say with one look. Something in the way he held her stare told her he knew that it would take still a while until her siblings let themselves be swallowed by their burdens, and only then she'd be able to slip away and become invisible. 

By the time Arya was free, Gendry had already been waiting for her, behind the armory.

"Follow me," was all she said, and he let her lead him to a part of Winterfell he hadn't seen in all the time he had been there. They went past the guards' tower and through the lichyard until they reached some old constructions that appeared to be in ruins. He had seen the Broken Tower when he rode into Winterfell with Jon's group on their way back from the Wall, but he didn't know much about the story behind it or about the derelict building that stood next to it.

"This is the First Keep," Arya announced, "they say it was first built by the First Men, but then it was destroyed and rebuilt with the coming of the Andals. "

"What's in it?"

"Nothing anymore. Bran and I used to explore it when we were kids before he fell from this very place."

If Gendry had questions about the information, Arya had just disclosed he kept them to himself. Instead, he asked, "why did you bring me here, then?"

"Because you won't come to my chamber, and no one will find us here."

They went inside, walking up the stone steps until they reached what evidently had been a chamber hundreds of years before that Arya deemed suitable. There was no furniture, just a nook by a window that faced the fires of the dead outside Winterfell. Arya unlaced her cloak and signaled for Gendry to do the same, letting them fall by their feet. She then pushed him to sit, and she sat astride him, pulling his lips to hers. Once she had coaxed him into the kiss, her hands fell to his chest, unlacing the ties of his jerkin and pushing it off his shoulders. When Gendry's arms were free from the garment, he reached for the laces of her doublet and started the task of freeing her of it, Arya helped impatiently. It was a relief to shed the layer of leather from their torsos and pull the billowy linen out of their breeches, somehow managing with minimal interruption to their kissing.

**Gendry IX**

Arya's body crashed against his torso with nipples already pebbled that he could clearly feel through the thin layers of their shirts. Gendry released her hips to run his hands up and down her back, sneaking one of them under the fabric. He pressed her tighter to him, and the hand under her shirt learned just how hot her skin ran despite the nipping chill in the ruins that, unlike the Great Keep of Winterfell, was not built over hot springs making the stones warm. 

Gendry heard himself groan when Arya pushed at his chest, freeing herself from his embrace and dismounting. His arms felt deprived without her, but he calmed the buck inside him when he discovered she had done it to take off her boots and breeches. 

"Aren't you going to unlace yourself?" Arya's question broke the trance of watching her undress.

He promptly untied his breeches and loosened them enough to free his cock. Gendry then saw Arya holding on to the hem of her tunic, intending to rid herself of it, but he stopped her placing his hand on her wrist.

"Despite how much I like you bare, you'll catch your death. Leave it on," he instructed.

She must have liked something in Gendry's simple observation, for she smiled as she took her place on him once more. Gendry missed what could have been so crucial in his words, but he enjoyed the effect they had on her. Arya knelt on the ledge, on either side of him, holding herself there while she moved the fabric of her shirt out of the way, and then she lowered herself slowly. She didn't take him in yet, but instead, she carefully positioned her cleft, so when she slid down, his length parted her lips, anointing him with her desire.

Gendry had to squeeze her backside, creating more friction, and the fingers of his left hand tangled on the hair at her nape, pulling her down to his mouth. He was sure that the frenzy of his kiss was letting Arya know she had the upper hand, and she rolled her hips enticingly in response, once, twice, thrice until she made him growl.

When they parted for air, Gendry released her hair, and he moved his hand until it reached the coiled plait at the back of her head.

"Could you undo this?"

"Why?" She asked with an eyebrow raised. 

"I want to see you, not that stiff mask you like to wear."

Arya's hands moved to her hair to set it loose. She shook her head to let the crimped strands frame her face, and obscure it a bit as she tilted to kiss him again. Gendry reciprocated lovingly, guiding her face with his hand on her neck. His fingers graced her jaw and behind her ear, making Arya wince.

"What's wrong?" He asked, concerned.

"Nothing," she said dismissively, but he had already caught the tender wound at the back of her jaw.

"What's this?"

"Nothing," she said again, and she kissed him with enough fervor to make him forget all about the scratch.

When she pulled back, Gendry could see the twinkle in her eye, and he knew that the next time she rolled her hips, she intended to take him in, and so, his hips canted just in time, joining them in one fluid motion. They moved against each other, savoring the feeling of their union, and as Arya arched her body, Gendry's hands anchored her. The movement made the fabric of her tunic shift and reminded him of other treasures he hadn't yet revealed. Keeping her steady with his left arm, his right hand came to the front of her shirt, pulling at the laces until the collar gave, and it slid loose over her shoulder, he then tugged at the edge, bringing it under one breast. 

"I love your teats," he professed, with words he knew were less than inspired, but that told so much about the spell her body had on him.

"They're not big," she admitted as if she had to apologize.

"They're perfect for me," he reassured her, and to make his point more poignant, he cupped it in his hand, squeezing it and rubbing the tip with his thumb. 

Gendry had never known Arya to covet a more shapely body, but she must have liked something in his crude words that he had meant as praise because he was able to see the way her eyes glinted and her cheeks blushed. 

"Your leathers are always so tight, and they make them look almost flat. But I like knowing just how heavy and round they really are," Gendry said right before he took her breast in his mouth.

**Arya X**

She bit her lower lip at the sensation of his tongue swirling around her nipple. The feeling so powerful it made her sheath clench around him, which in turn made him bite the stiff peak in his mouth.

Gendry's name bloomed from her mouth into a loud moan. The brazen sound made him let go of the rosy peak, mesmerized by it, but while such expression would have worried them both any other time, being so far away from the habitable buildings in Winterfell had made them careless. 

Arya felt the change in him after she moaned his name, and the bull he had always been was finally untethered and bucked into her with wild frenzy. His deep thrusts made Arya hold on to his shoulders, needing to feel him close to her. There was something marvelous when they stared into each other's eyes as they fucked, which made it all much more intense. Arya felt exposed, with Gendry suddenly filling every corner of her mind. 

It was as if every roll of his hips would unlock something in her chest, rendering every secret thing open and visible to the man whose cock was snugly wedged inside of her, and whose blue eyes had her spellbound. Something in her softened, and she felt herself smile, knowing that it was him, Gendry, the keeper of her secrets, Gendry, with his warm lips who liked to kiss her in the middle of his ranting and Gendry, the one she wanted to be buried in her flesh. 

She clenched once more, overwhelmed by the sensations, and she saw the blue of his eyes disappear in the back of his eyes, cursing at her, "Arya, fuck!"

She laughed at the power she had over him, kissed him once more, letting her tongue sneak in between his parted lips. They hadn't kissed much like that, but she loved exploring with Gendry, both of them discovering new ways to share themselves together. Arya hadn't asked, but she suspected that he hadn't done as much with his other three women. At least not as much as he had already done with her. Despite his experience, it felt like they were both learning together.

She was enjoying herself, kissing him with eyes closed and keeping her rhythm, that she missed the moment that Gendry brought his thumb to the little bud in between her legs, the one he had become so deft at teasing. From that moment on, she completely lost the ability to form thoughts in her head, and instead, she was no longer a woman but the she-wolf she had always been inside. She let go of his mouth then, arching her back, bare breast once more presented to him to possess. Gendry sucked on it ravenously, his loud growling mixing with her pants. 

After that, it took only three more strokes for both to reach an almost perfectly timed peak. They remained still for a long moment, embracing each other tightly and their foreheads nestled together.

**Gendry X**

It may have been the release that made him want to blurt out all the things stuck in his chest, what he had intended to say that night in the storeroom about his past mistakes. Gendry wanted to ask about the names she added to her list for him and to tell her what happened in Dragonstone. He held on tighter to her body, wondering if she also had things that she wished to disclose, like the story of the scars on her body. 

But instead of speaking, he remained silent, hoping one day there would be time to share more than what their skins had to say.

Arya was the first to speak, "we should probably move before we freeze to death."

"I thought the cold didn't bother you," he said, making the tender skin on her neck prickle with the heat of his words. "That it is only my stupid southron blood that gets cold."

She rose from him then, and her eyes threw daggers his way for the mocking.

"If you want to stay here, half-naked and wet, be my guest," she challenged as she was already pulling her breeches up her legs. 

The wetness rolling down her leg caught his attention, and his hand came to his neck, looking for the rag he usually tied around it but had not worn that day. He grasped his clothes, looking for something to help her clean, but found nothing.

"Wait, you're wet. Use my sleeve," Gendry offered, extending his arm to her.

Arya ignored him as she finished pulling her breeches on and started lacing them. 

"I went to battle with your seed trickling down on my thigh," she explained. "I can surely walk the few paces it takes to reach my chamber."

Gendry grimaced, suddenly feeling guilty by the evidence of their secret affair. The messiness of it making it all so much more sordid. He looked around at the ancient ruins of her family's castle as he pulled up his breeches and looked for his cloak. 

Again, he was remorseful for what had happened between them. He felt a sudden fury at the thought of Arya being taken in the dirt and cold by a bastard like him.

"Judging by your face, one would think fucking me brought you no joy at all."

Arya's words broke through his rage and self-pity and made him pull her into an embrace, burying his face in the crook of her neck. 

He inhaled deeply, their mixed scents reminding him that what they did was not just one of his fevered dreams. 

"None of that," he simply said.

"Why are you all grumpy all of a sudden, then?" Arya asked him once he let go of her.

"Nothing. It's just that I hate taking you in a place like this. You deserve better."

 _'Than a bastard like me,'_ he didn't dare to add.

"Do not forget it was me who brought us here," he heard her say, and he knew her enough to recognize her seething fury, "and not the other way around."

"You deserve more than this."

"I don't have time for this nonsense. I want you, and you want me, and that's that."

Gendry finished fasting his cloak and looked at her, trying to tame her tangled hair, and hide from the world just how much he liked to run his fingers through it as he loved her.

"Sansa is probably looking for me now," she finally said when she deemed herself presentable enough.

"The feast tonight, it's in your honor."

Gendry immediately regretted saying something so obvious and inconsequential. 

"Against my wishes."

It was always hard to find the words to say before they parted ways after their encounters. The time when they both donned strangers' masks, along with the clothes they used to cover their nudity. 

"I'll see you there, then?" Those were the stupid words he found to bid her goodbye.

Arya just stared at him and finally spoke, "If not there, I'm sure you'll find me."

**Arya XI**

Gendry left the First Keep before her, always the one worried about being found. Arya saw him go with determined steps, his brow knitted and his jaw tense, a far cry from the softened look he had given her when they were relishing in the afterglow, and she had set her forehead on his, their faces obscured by her hair, cocooning them both from their world. Arya loved those precious minutes after sharing themselves.

Once he was out of sight, she left the shadows. She had planned to walk to her chamber and prepare for the feast, wash away their secret love, and hope the dark cloud in her chest could be shed as effortlessly as Gendry's sooty fingerprints from her hips.

But there was no rush, no hurry to don the face of the hero of Winterfell for her brother's queen to toast and praise. If she was honest, she thought while walking by the graves of those who had served the Kings of Winter in the lichyard, Arya would have to admit that she held no animosity towards the Targaryen queen. But she would also have to confess that she held no love either. Those past sennights, Arya had been feeling like she was watching one of Lady Crane's plays. How long until the actors took their final bow and ripped the wigs from their heads? How long until their swords fell to the stone floor without a clang? The hollowness in her chest seemed to be infectious. The nights she didn't sleep in Gendry's arms, she had dreamed of a hand reaching the place behind her ear, where it met the hinge of her jaw, and it had ripped the dead face away, and then another, and another. To her horror, she never seemed to reach her real face, and then, she discovered that there was no one under all the layers of death. Arya had woken in panic, reaching behind her ear, looking for a flap that was not there, and scratching until the skin was raw and her fingernails red.

Arya had not planned to enter the crypts. She had not dared since before the battle, not willing to see the aftermath after hearing from Sansa how their dead ancestors had risen. 

Going down the stone steps, the catacombs stood still and dark, as if the ancient kings of Winter had not risen over a fortnight before.

She was grateful her father's bones had not been used to do the Night King's bidding, to hurt the women and children taking shelter in the crypts, the massive stone slab over his tomb still heavy to keep him trapped. 

Arya walked by the statue of her aunt Lyanna with her hand extended and her pleading look. She took a moment to admire her, the fabled beauty of her father's sister, the one he would sometimes see in her.

After her aunt's statute, she found her father's. There was no doubt that it had been done in his likeness, but it failed to make Arya feel his presence. Next to Ned Stark, the statues of his wife and their firstborn son stood. She had not asked, but Arya presumed her sister had commissioned them as soon as Winterfell had been taken back from the Boltons. Sorrow bloomed in her veins and burrowed in her bones, knowing neither Robb's, not Mother's bodies had been returned to the North. She had been there to see how her brother's body had been butchered. And she wondered what may have happened to the bloated corpse of her mother, discarded in the river like fish guts.

Her relationship with her mother had never been as easygoing as the one with her father; nevertheless, she missed her. The gods knew she had not turned out to be the lady she was sure her mother would have liked, one like Sansa. Still, she had needed her mother's arms around her to comfort her when her father was beheaded. So many nights, she wished to have her warm her when she had to sleep in the cold mud. Instead, she had to figure out alone what to do when she awoke to blood in her smallclothes and on her straw bed. On the morning of her first flowering, she walked to the canals at dawn and scrubbed her clothes in the cold water. 

It wouldn't be until she asked for guidance from the courtesans of the pillow house that she learned what to do every moonturn. One of them warned her that she'd have to be more careful from then on to avoid a man getting his bastard on her now that she was a woman grown.

Arya touched the sleeves of her mother's statue, carved in stone, and she remembered pulling on them to get her attention. Her hand moved down over the solid fabric and tried to conjure her, horrified that Arya stood in front of her with thighs stained by the seed of a bastard boy. She wished she could shock her mother into life, that her sordid deeds could be enough to make her break out of the stone, and her heart could beat once more. 

The statue stood there with impenetrable eyes and lips together in a demure smile. Something prickled in Arya's eyes, looking at the effigies of her parents, unmovable, staring ahead without seeing her, and she thought that the statues were a lot like the Winterfell she found, made in the likeness of the memories of her heart, but empty inside.

**Gendry XI**

"I hadn't had time to properly thank you."

It was what Jon said to him the moment Gendry arrived at his solar, having been summoned a couple of hours after coming back from their secret encounter in the First Keep. He was grateful to the gods for the time he had to clean before having to meet with Arya's brother. And despite agreeing with her, that whatever they were doing together had nothing to do with their family, it was hard not to feel a slight trepidation. 

In the end, Jon had not summoned him to interrogate him about his relationship with his sister, nor to give him a new task. If he didn't feel utterly guilty, Gendry would have laughed that just earlier he had been rutting against Arya, and now, her brother wanted to thank him.

"I sincerely doubt you're going around the keep thanking everyone who fought and was lucky enough to live," he said after pursing his lips.

"No, not everyone, that's true," Jon agreed, "but you worked day and night to arm us all. Probably harder than anyone else before the battle."

"I just did my part," Gendry explained, looking at his boots.

"It occurred to me," Jon continued, from his place at the lord's table, "that you didn't need to come all this way. You must have a lot of loyalty to Davos."

"He did save my life once. Twice now. It was the least I could do."

"But, you did far more than the least."

Gendry nodded, and after a moment, he spoke, "Aye. Something told me that I was always meant to come here."

"Because our fathers were friends?" Jon asked, and it was clear to Gendry that neither of them believed that.

"No, not really. The old fat king may have sired me, but he never meant anything to me."

 _'Arya,'_ he thought instead. Everything started and ended with Arya.

"So, you came to the North to meet certain death just because?"

"I had debts to pay," he explained ambiguously, "and I had been waiting for something, a reason to live, a point for this fucking life."

Jon stared at him for a moment, and then continued, "well, I would hate to think that what we faced beyond the Wall and the Battle of Winterfell were the only things you'll remember from this place. I hope that despite the cold and the dead, there was something for you to love here in the North. "

 _'Aye,'_ Gendry thought, unable to stop the memory of Arya's flushed face as she peaked from just a few hours earlier. _'The most beautiful thing I've ever seen.'_

Thankfully, Jon did not expect an answer, "I guess what I wanted to say was that you agreed to come to fight for the living. The coming battle is not your cause; I know that. It was me who bent the knee, and while my sisters don't agree, the North bent the knee as well. You are not a Northman, and have no obligation to come to King's Landing unless it is what you want to do."

"I..." Gendry said suddenly at a loss for words.

 _'I want to follow her'_ is what he wanted to say, but the woman in question was not Jon's queen.

Gendry wasn't sure of what he would have said if he had been given the time, but at that precise moment, the door to the solar opened, and the queen arrived with Lord Varys behind her, hands clasped together and entirely covered by the sleeves of his robe. 

"Your grace," Gendry bowed, and kept his eyes down, uncertain of what to do. 

"Am I interrupting?" Queen Daenerys asked.

"Not at all, Gendry and I are done here," Jon reassured her, quickly standing up.

"By your leave, your grace," Gendry asked.

She dismissed him with a nod, and Gendry left, feeling her eyes and those of her master of secrets as hot as licks of the flames. 

**Arya XII**

By the time Arya arrived at her chamber, the old copper tub had been set in the middle of the place and a servant girl had told her she would be fetching her buckets of hot water. Arya had tried to convince her it was not necessary, as she had planned to clean with a piece of cloth and the water basin in her room, but Alys had informed her that her lady sister had ordered she had a proper bath since she was the guest of honor. In the end, Arya had acquiesced as the prospect of submerging in steaming water to ease the sweet ache in between her thighs was alluring. 

Once the tub was filled and steaming, and Alys had bid her leave, Arya had begun to disrobe, placing her weapons and clothing on the bed. She had just climbed in the tub when there was a knock on her door, and she heard Sansa's voice announcing herself.

"Come in," she instructed as she started lowering herself in the water.

She was facing away from the door, but her keen senses could tell every movement her sister made as if she could watch her. She felt her stop a few paces behind, surely noticing the bruises and love bites on her shoulders and on the back of her neck. 

"I would have expected your bruises to have faded by now," Sansa commented, as she rounded the tub and came into her view.

It was clear that Sansa had not been referring to the still noticeable mark under her eye or the silvery mark of the hand of the Night King on her neck. 

"Am I to be nude at the feast? Is that why you are so concerned about my skin being blemished?"

"You know that is not what I meant."

"Then you should say what you meant instead of just implying it," Arya challenged her sister.

"Fine, dear sister. I'll say what I mean then," Sansa spoke without hesitance, answering her challenge. "Your lover is rough, I can see his bites on your breasts and the shape of his fingers on your hips."

"You don't think I have marked him as well?"

Sansa took a moment before speaking again, "he doesn't hurt you then?"

Her sister's question made Arya falter, suddenly knowing that her concern had less to do with dishonor and more with her own experiences. 

"He has hurt me in the past," Arya replied, her eyes looking back lifetimes before, to a cave in the Riverlands, "never when he beds me."

Arya didn't blink, not wanting to miss any change in Sansa that could betray her true feelings on the matter. After a few moments, something in her eyes finally softened, and while there were no changes on her poise, Arya knew her fears were now gone. 

"He's lowborn, isn't he?"

Arya's eyebrow rose as she responded with another question, "does it matter?"

"There was a time when it would have mattered to me, but not anymore," her sister explained. "It may matter to Jon, though."

Arya doubted Gendry's station would be Jon's biggest concern if he knew, but she understood the point Sansa was trying to make.

"Good thing he's not the one fucking him then."

That had finally broken through Sansa's icy face, and her lips curled into a soft smile. It was quite the contrast, knowing that the Sansa she had accompanied to King's Landing, all those years before, would have been dismayed at her vulgar words. 

"He pleases you?"

It was Arya's turn to smile, and surprise her sister by the way life had changed her.

"He does."

"Very well," Sansa finally said, heading towards the door. "Dress nicely, you are the guest of honor, after all."

* * *

She wore her high-quality leathers, commissioned by Sansa, when she came to Winterfell after so many years away. It was strange, after a life in mud-caked rags and no more than one set of clothes, to suddenly have a few items of each type. She had asked for garments similar to what her father used to wear, and she was sure Sansa had made suggestions of her own. She now stood in front of her mirror, trying to delay her entrance at the feast, and not because she cared about the way she looked. 

She looked impeccable, with her short hair pulled back tightly in a half-do, reminiscent of the way her lord father used to wear his hair. The cloak on her shoulders did little to keep her warm, but instead, it left her free enough to let her jump into battle, or flee. 

As she left her chamber and headed towards the Great Hall, Arya knew that she'd be expected to join the head table in the dais. Would she be seated to one of Jon's sides as Sansa was placed on the other? Would she be used as a buffer to keep her sister further away from the queen? The mere idea exhausted her, and she found herself walking away from the path she was set to take towards the banquet. Instead, she walked towards the kennels and the stables without aim, though she knew it was the forge the place where she'd end up eventually. 

It was empty, and the fires were out. Arya walked to the small room where Gendry slept and found him gone. He was probably already at the feast, and Arya wished then that she had told him she wasn't planning to attend. They could have left together, and by then, they may have already found a place where she wasn't a hero nor a lady.

Her bow and quiver were still where they were left before the battle, in the hallway just outside the forge. It was one of the granaries of Winterfell, where food for the horses was stored, and also where she learned what it felt to lie with a man.

Arya picked them up and masked the nervous energy of her hands by shooting as she waited for Gendry to come back. He had never been social, and she was sure he was bound to feel overwhelmed and find his way back to the only place he'd feel at home. 

**Gendry XII**

The gods hated him. 

If all the shit he had lived through had not been evidence enough, having been seated across from the Hound was surely enough for Gendry to be convinced. Though he had gotten a sliver of satisfaction when he saw the man push back on his seat, slam the piece of bread in his hand hard on the table and roll his eyes.

At least the contempt was mutual.

They had a brief conversation when they were helping carry the bodies out of Winterfell. However, it was clear that both men still felt uncomfortable about Sandor having walked in on Arya and Gendry in a very compromising position.

Gendry didn't have time to dwell on him, though, as he was busy looking around trying to find Arya among the crowd. She was not at the head table on the dais, but he had never expected her to be there. A sudden memory brought the image of Arry among the people, talking to strangers whenever they stopped at an inn. It made him nostalgic for the curious social girl that pretended to be a boy and, unlike him, had no trouble asking questions to the travelers they encountered. The Arya he knew, under the mud disguise of Arry, would not sit at the dais, but instead, she would have eaten with the soldiers, and the servants, and the wildings. The Arya, who hunted rabbits and knew how to skin and cook her game, would drink her ale with the smallfolk and share her rations with the orphan kids and the elderly. Arry would talk while Gendry grunted and stayed away. She'd call him on his shortcomings, and refuse him when he'd propose they let the others behind. Gendry knew that Arry still existed under the cold and hard exterior she wore as armor since they had met again in Winterfell. 

Why wasn't Arya there? He wondered every time he turned his head and looked through the tables, trying to find her. Whenever he turned his eyes to the doors, expecting to see her there coming into the hall, the Hound would catch him, and he'd shake his head. 

There was no point in pretending that he didn't care for anyone there but her.

"Have you seen Arya?" He finally asked the man across from him, looking down and away from his eyes, still pretending it wasn't a big deal when they both knew it was.

"You can still smell the burning bodies, and that's where your head is at."

Gendry knew Sandor didn't know more than what he had witnessed before the battle, when he had walked in as he had Arya against the wall of the storeroom, and she had him trapped in her flesh. There was no way for the Hound to know that just hours earlier, they had been together in the abandoned keep, and they had fucked in front of a window that let them see the still burning pyres, the stench of burning flesh clinging to their clothes. 

Still, his words made him stammer, and hate himself, feeling guilty for his ambition of coveting a woman that was never meant to be his. 

"I just want to thank her for —" Gendry tried to explain himself, but Sandor Clegane was quick to interrupt him.

"I'm sure you do." 

"Look, it's not about that."

"Of course it's about that, you twat," he said with exasperation, but for the first time since Gendry had the misfortune to know the man, he felt like he was on his side. "Why shouldn't it be? The dead are dead. You're not."

Mayhaps it had been that: and unexpected encouragement from the least likely of allies that convinced him to stand up and leave the Great Hall to find her. A chance to finally say the things he had meant to tell her before the battle, let her know that his cause was hers and that he'd follow her down south to cross Cersei's name from her list, or wherever else she'd meant to go. 

His mind was frantic, planning how to say it without getting distracted like he had in the past. It was mayhaps why he missed the way the dragon queen had been looking at him. He would have made it out of the hall if her voice had not called on him.

"Gendry."

**Arya XIII**

Something was soothing in letting her hands take over, repeat an action her muscles knew well: planting her feet firmly on the ground, nocking the arrow, anchoring her bow while she drew the string back, aiming, releasing, and following through. 

The repetition of every step lulling the anxious feelings a bit while she still waited for Gendry to find her there. Her ears buzzed with the intensity of the voice in her mind, yelling too loud to ignore. 

_'Winterfell is not you home anymore.'_

The seed that was planted a while before had now bloomed, red and molten, and the only thing that she could see ahead was riding down towards King's Landing, as when her father had taken her and Sansa to never return. 

Cersei's name had to be crossed from her list in her blood. 

Mayhaps Gendry would want to go with her.

Gendry, who didn't have roots anywhere. 

As another arrow was nocked, she let her mind wander, and she could almost see them both, once more on the King's Road, and then off of it, camping in the forest, listening for the howls of the wolves.

Meeting Nymeria again. 

Mayhaps it could be like before, sleeping huddled together for warmth. Walking the roads with muddy boots, or riding, with Gendry complaining of the pain in his arse, still uncomfortable sitting a horse.

And once Cersei Lannister was dead, they could fuck off from that life, disappear in small towns and forests, leaving their names behind. 

That last thought painted a smile on her lips, as the arrow was anchored against her nose. 

They could stop at inns and pretend they were married to share a room so Gendry wouldn't get all grumpy with his remorse at bedding the daughter of a lord. 

String back.

Arya was no longer a little girl begging for him to stay with her and offering to be his family. 

Aim.

Maybe this time, he'd take her up on her offer.

Release.

"Don't shoot!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you feel sad as I do, let me suggest to head to another one of my fics that is meant to come after this one. It is All roads lead to Qohor, and you can find the link below since I have made this fic part of the same series as that one. 
> 
> Thank you to all of you who took the time to read, kudos, or comment. Your thoughts have enriched my life immensely.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are a reader from the future long after I wrote and posted this fic, just know that wherever I am I would love to hear from you, and remember this fic from my past.


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